The role of community consultation forums in supporting age-friendly communities: lessons from a disadvantaged British city

In order to be age-friendly, communities need adequate public health support. Community consultation is increasingly favoured as a means of ensuring public health services adequately meet the needs of the populations they serve yet research has highlighted the frequency of inadequate and tokenistic consultation. Our aim was to address the gap in understanding of the subjective benefits of community consultation by being the first study to examine these events in a disadvantaged British city. A naturalistic world café study was co-designed with a community engagement service in the UK. Adults aged 68 to 91 years (n=103) participated in one of two world cafés which aimed to investigate the subjective benefits of consultation forums. Qualitative findings demonstrated how consultation through forums can support age-friendly communities in a variety of expected and unexpected ways. Understanding of the added value of consultation forums may incentivise service providers to facilitate more meaningful consultation.