The professors of the UJI and directors of the Chair Cuatroochenta, Óscar Belmonte and Antonio Caballer will carry out a diagnostic study to analyze whether the city has sufficient resources to promote healthy and active ageing. This research is part of the project “Castelló, a friendly city for the elderly”, promoted by the City Council of Castelló de la Plana.
The Department of Senior Citizens of the City Council of Castelló de la Plana has launched the development of the second Action Plan of the project "Friendly City with the Elderly'' which aims to define a series of actions and initiatives to make the city an environment adapted and with resources to meet the needs of this age group. In this sense, on Thursday, June 2, the directors of the Cuatroochenta Chair of Artificial Intelligence, Health and Welfare, Antonio Caballer and Óscar Belmonte, together with the UJI professor, Ana Alarcón, held a first meeting with the counsellor for the elderly of Castelló, Mari Carmen Ribera.
The main objective of this first diagnostic phase is to assess whether Castelló is a friendly city for the elderly, that is if it has resources and adaptations to promote healthy and active ageing. Along this line, citizen participation, especially of the elderly, is one of the fundamental pillars of the project. For this first phase, in particular, information will be collected through various groups with specific characteristics and representative of the older population of Castelló as well as other sectors and organizations. According to Councilwoman Mari Carmen Ribera, "this diagnosis will allow us to obtain very valuable information about what the elderly think and expect from the city of Castelló so that we can incorporate their vision and needs in the design and implementation of policies". The completion date of this diagnostic phase is scheduled for 2023.
Cuatroochenta Chair and the elderly
Currently, all the projects being carried out by the Chair's team have to do with the elderly and especially, in line with the “Castellón Friendly City project”, with the assessment of the needs of this group, such as its projects “Serena”, a chatbot to assess unwanted loneliness, the assessment of physical, cognitive and social fragility through the use of 3D cameras and the “Senior Monitoring” project, to assess the risk of cognitive impairment through changes in behaviour using geolocation technology. The Chair is also part of the European network ARGENTUM which aims to promote the economy of people over 50.
"Castelló, a friendly city with the elderly" is a vital project for the future of the city since it is an initiative that enables the elderly to participate in the design of the city they want and allows them to get involved by contributing, with their vision, new proposals for improvement".
Amparo Marco - Mayoress of Castelló
Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities
The project is part of the Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) whose objective is to create resources that facilitate healthy and active ageing. The city of Castelló became part of this network in 2014, carrying out its first action plan in 2016. Its evaluation, recently completed, has revealed a high degree of achievement of the initially proposed objectives. "We are making Castelló a more inclusive city, which promotes active ageing and improves the quality of life of all older people and citizens in general", in the words of the councillor for older people.