Societal actors’ perceptions of intersectoral collaboration and the participation of older adults in the development of age-friendly environments

Abstract Background Older adults’ participation and intersectoral collaboration are central to the development of age-friendly environments. While previous research has emphasised the importance of these principles, less is known about how they are understood and enacted by societal actors in practice. This creates a need to explore societal actors’ perceptions of both intersectoral collaboration and older adults’ participation in the development of age-friendly environments. Method The study had a participatory qualitative design. Data were collected through a World Café involving 19 societal actors in a Swedish municipal context. Participants represented several societal sectors relevant to age-friendly environments, including welfare, care, public health, governance, social sustainability, urban planning,mobility, civil society, and voluntary engagement. Findings The findings showed that participants perceived intersectoral collaboration as requiring shared societal responsibility across multiple sectors, while responsibility risked becoming unclear when no actor had an explicit mandate to coordinate, prioritise and act. Intersectoral collaboration was viewed as a way of sharing resources, yet also as vulnerable when it relied mainly on personal relationships and informal networks rather than organisationally embedded structures. Similarly, older adults’ participation was highly valued when developing age-friendly initiatives, but participants questioned whether existing participation channels adequately reflect the diversity of older adults’ experiences and needs. Conclusion Age-friendly work requires shared responsibility across societal actors, supported by clear coordination. Personal relationships and informal networks should be recognised as valuable for enabling collaboration, but they need to be complemented by formal structures to ensure sustainability over time. Moreover, greater efforts to reach seldom-heard older adults are needed. Doing so may contribute to more nuanced and age-friendly initiatives that better reflect the diverse needs of the older population.