ePO 120 -Older adults’ perceptions of ‘Age-Friendly Cities and Communities’ programme in Portuguese municipalities

The age-friendly cities movement, promoted by the World Health Organization, has expanded globally as a response to population ageing and the need to adapt urban environments accordingly. Portugal is the fourth most aged-people country in the world and the second in European Union (Pordata, 2024). Since its creation in 2010, several Portuguese municipalities have joined the WHO Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (WGNAFCC). In 2023, the Portuguese National Programme for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (NPAFCC) was launched in order to guide the involved agents towards promoting active and healthy aging across Portugal. Previous research, namely from Barata et al. (2025), has validated the Portuguese version of the Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Questionnaire (AFCCQ-PT).

However, there is still limited evidence on how older adults perceive the effectiveness of local interventions within the scope of such programmes. This paper intends to fill this gap by applying a combination of a survey with semi-structured interviews with older adults and with local decision-makers of the Cities Councils, focusing on key domains such as mobility, access to health services, quality of public spaces, community participation, and institutional communication, among others. The main objective is to assess the evolution of “age-friendly performance” of the municipalities after their adherence to the WGNAFCC.

Beyond previous validation studies, our findings offer a comparative longitudinal perspective across Portuguese municipalities, identifying not only good practices but also persisting barriers in achieving “age-friendliness”, cross-referencing the information with data from the WHO Healthy Cities Programme, whenever the municipalities belong to both networks. By foregrounding the lived experiences aligning them with institutional goals, this study contributes to strengthening the Portuguese NPAFCC through evidence-based, context-sensitive recommendations.