Our communities across Pima County are full of stories about the lives of older people. Here in the pages of A Report to the Community: Aging in Pima County 2023 , data and survey responses provide a compelling narrative for all of us to better understand the key issues identified by more than three thousand adults aged 50 and older who engaged with PCOA during this process. We are excited to engage our community through the results of this report. Education and advocacy are core to our role as an Area Agency on Aging, and the results of our 2022-2023 Community Needs Assessment, published in this report, allow us to not only provide the most effective services possible to our community, but also advocate for and educate community leaders about aging in Pima County. As the only comprehensive community assessment of its kind for and about the needs and concerns of older adults and their caregivers in Pima County, A Report to the Community: Aging in Pima County A Message from our President & CEO
2023 , affords a look at the current state of older adult residents, highlighting what we are collectively doing well, and where we need to improve. This new report is the official compilation and analysis of that data and an exploration of the critical issues facing our community. We know that aging well often leads to positive health outcomes for our entire population. Among them: improving the health and well-being of older adults and benefiting other residents, businesses, organizations, and local governments by fostering the economic and environmental health of the community. Since the last time we published this report, we used the data and information gathered to guide some of our most important and impactful projects, programs, and initiatives of the last five years. One such innovation and impact has been our involvement establishing the city of Tucson as a livable community. Since our last Report to the Community, published in 2017, we have proudly partnered with the City of Tucson, United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona, and AARP Arizona to draft, adopt, and implement the Age-Friendly Tucson Plan, which lays out an effort to make our community more livable and friendly to people of all ages and backgrounds. In an effort to make our community more livable, we have heavily invested our time and resources over the past decade into quality family caregiver support and direct care worker programs. Our three-pronged approach for ensuring that older adults can age well in our community includes our Older Americans Act family caregiver support programs and services, professional in-home care through PimaCare at Home, and creating a pipeline of qualified and trained caregivers and medical professionals through our 2020 acquisition of the CareGiver Training Institute. We know there continues to be work to do to make our community livable, but the foundation we have built over the past decade gives us a strong path forward in addressing today’s challenges. To engage with and build a healthier and more vibrant community, our Board of Directors and Executive Leadership worked together to open the Katie Dusenberry Healthy Aging Center in 2019. While “The Katie,” as we affectionately refer to it, was closed to most public services during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to protect public health, we have been excited to
A Report to the Community
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Pima Council on Aging
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