Municipalities and scientists join forces to fight loneliness

The Center for Healthy Ageing at the University of Copenhagen collaborates with four municipalities on developing activities and other efforts to increase the health of the elderly. The aim is to quickly benefit from new knowledge and research within this area.

More than 60 participants from the Center for Healthy Ageing’s four primary municipal partners, Gentofte, Ishøj, Vordingborg and Copenhagen, met with scientists from the research team Health Enhancing Innovations at a seminar in late November. Central questions discussed included: How do we include voluntary organisations in the process? And not least, how can scientists help municipalities develop and document their efforts?

Research in play in municipalities
“The day was characterized by an enormous commitment as well as dialogue and interaction amongst the participants. We are very pleased that the number of participants from our collaborating municipalities has almost doubled since our first meeting, approximately one and a half years ago. This indicates that the municipalities consider our collaboration valuable. It’s so great that municipalities actually use our research,” says Associate Professor Maria Kristiansen from Center for Healthy Ageing at the Department of Public Health, UCPH.

The day began with a concrete intervention on loneliness among elderly inhabitants in social housing in Copenhagen Municipality. The scientists from the centre highlighted the case from different professional angles: social sciences, public health, health economics, anthropology and ethnology, after which there was a panel discussion with representatives from the four municipalities. The case included a voluntary organisation and the discussions also touched upon the challenges and potentials inherent in such collaborations.

A municipal wish list
The municipal wish list for future intervention projects include greater insight into voluntary organisations’ contributions to healthy ageing interventions deployed by local authorities, as well as information on the potentials and challenges presented in involving new and multiple actors in local initiatives.

Their wish list also includes further research on social inequality and vulnerability from cradle to grave, in order to help local authorities identify groups at risk of becoming lonely, as this will help them target their efforts. Several of the current research projects at Center for Healthy Ageing include the above mentioned areas, however, the seminar also revealed new ways of approaching future intervention research.