Societal actors perceived intersectoral collaboration as requiring shared responsibility and clear coordination, while existing participation channels were questioned for their ability to adequately reflect the diversity of older adults' experiences and needs in age-friendly environment development.
Key Findings
Results
Intersectoral collaboration was perceived as requiring shared societal responsibility across multiple sectors, but responsibility risked becoming unclear when no actor had an explicit mandate to coordinate, prioritise, and act.
Data were collected through a World Café involving 19 societal actors in a Swedish municipal context.
Participants represented sectors including welfare, care, public health, governance, social sustainability, urban planning, mobility, civil society, and voluntary engagement.
The absence of a clearly designated coordinating actor was identified as a key vulnerability in intersectoral collaboration.
The study used a participatory qualitative design.
Results
Intersectoral collaboration was viewed as a way of sharing resources, yet was considered vulnerable when it relied mainly on personal relationships and informal networks rather than organisationally embedded structures.
Participants recognised personal relationships and informal networks as valuable enablers of collaboration.
However, these informal mechanisms were seen as insufficient on their own to ensure sustainability over time.
Participants indicated that formal, organisationally embedded structures are needed to complement informal networks.
The reliance on personal relationships was identified as a structural weakness in sustaining age-friendly initiatives.
Results
Older adults' participation was highly valued in developing age-friendly initiatives, but participants questioned whether existing participation channels adequately reflect the diversity of older adults' experiences and needs.
Participants expressed concern about the representativeness of current participation mechanisms.
Greater efforts to reach seldom-heard older adults were identified as necessary.
The study highlighted that existing channels may systematically exclude certain subgroups of older adults.
Reaching more diverse older adults was framed as a way to contribute to more nuanced and age-friendly initiatives.
Methods
The World Café method was used as a participatory data collection approach involving 19 societal actors across multiple sectors relevant to age-friendly environments.
The study had a participatory qualitative design.
The World Café took place in a Swedish municipal context.
Nineteen societal actors participated, representing sectors such as welfare, care, public health, governance, social sustainability, urban planning, mobility, civil society, and voluntary engagement.
The qualitative approach was intended to explore perceptions of both intersectoral collaboration and older adults' participation.
Conclusions
Age-friendly environment development requires shared responsibility across societal actors supported by clear coordination, with formal structures needed to ensure long-term sustainability.
The findings indicated that informal personal relationships, while valuable, must be complemented by formal organisational structures.
Clear coordination and explicit mandates were identified as necessary to sustain intersectoral collaboration.
The study concluded that greater efforts to include seldom-heard older adults may contribute to initiatives that better reflect diverse needs of the older population.
These conclusions were drawn from a single Swedish municipal context, which may limit generalisability.
What This Means
This research explores how various societal actors — including people working in welfare, urban planning, public health, civil society, and governance — understand and practice collaboration and community participation when building age-friendly environments. The study used a group discussion format called a World Café with 19 participants in a Swedish municipality. Participants shared their experiences and perceptions about what makes cross-sector teamwork and older adult involvement work well or break down in practice.
The study found that while people across sectors recognized the importance of working together and involving older adults, there were notable gaps between ideals and practice. Collaboration often depended on personal relationships and informal networks, which made it fragile — if key individuals left or networks broke down, so did the collaboration. Additionally, when no single actor had a clear responsibility to coordinate efforts, accountability became diffuse and unclear. Regarding older adult participation, people valued input from seniors but acknowledged that existing channels tended to reach the same groups repeatedly, potentially missing the voices of those who are harder to engage, such as people with health challenges or those who are socially isolated.
This research suggests that creating truly age-friendly communities requires more than goodwill and personal connections. Formal organizational structures and clearly defined coordination roles are needed to make cross-sector collaboration sustainable over time. At the same time, communities may need to invest extra effort in reaching older adults whose perspectives are rarely heard, as including a wider range of experiences could lead to environments and services that better serve the full diversity of the aging population.
Nivestam A, Törnblom M, Haak M, Westergren A. (2026). Societal actors' perceptions of intersectoral collaboration and the participation of older adults in the development of age-friendly environments.. BMC geriatrics. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-026-08407-5