The team provides a survey tool to measure living conditions and aspects relating to the quality
of life of older people at the local level, such as housing conditions, care, social networks, neighbourhood aspects, volunteer/social/cultural/political participation, frailty, physical and mental health and social exclusion. The team engages older people as central actors (peer-research) in their research and promotes evidence-based policy at the community level by providing input and mobilising knowledge for planning and inclusive policy programs. Currently, such fragile groups are often excluded. The main purposes of the BAS project are:
- To provide a survey instrument to measure the living conditions and aspects of quality of life
of older people at the community level, including a wide range of aspects such as housing
conditions, feelings of loneliness, care, social networks, neighbourhood aspects, volunteer/
social/cultural/political participation, frailty, physical and mental health, feelings of being
unsafe, social exclusion;
- To engage older people as central actors in research and policy planning;
- To promote evidence-based policy at the local level by providing input and mobilising knowledge for planning and inclusive policy programmes;
- To provide and enable open access for municipalities, local and regional authorities, societal
stakeholders, and older adults to access the data and publications;
- To create opportunities for active ageing at the local level, and to support the process of
creating age-friendly communities;
- To examine trends in specific municipalities by conducting follow-up studies;
- To create engagement among all societal actors by means of a community network.
An example: In 2007 one municipality implemented the BAS research project. At the end of the
project that municipality received figures covering a wide range of aspects. An important finding was that a substantial number of older adults were facing feelings of loneliness and the municipality developed a neighbourhood project to tackle this by means of volunteers. These volunteers help older people with minor issues and assist them by providing information in areas where regular caregivers do not provide support. In 2014, the interventions were evaluated and the number of people facing feelings of loneliness had reduced significantly. In response, the municipality organised a post for a ‘mobile civil servant’, who visits old people in their homes.