Applying multi-criteria decision analysis to prioritise age-friendly criteria for policy implications

ABSTRACT Significant increase in the proportion of elderly and its expected further increase in the days to come draw attention of policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to enhance a community’s age-friendliness. Enhancement of a community’s age-friendliness requires appropriate policy implications recommended by various stakeholders based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) followed by Friedman’s rank test. Results showed that ‘safety and security’ has the highest priority amongst all the criteria considered for the assessment of age-friendliness. Based on Friedman’s rank test, community boundary with security check posts has the highest priority to increase safety and security of the community. A combination of policy measures having higher priority such as ‘police patrolling’, ‘mixed land-use urban planning’, and ‘accessibility to services’ could be the effective solution to increase safety and security of the community environment and foster independent living ability of its residents which in turn play important role in increasing age-friendliness of the community.