UNG helps Gainesville earn AARP designation

October 20, 2021

Dr. Pamela Elfenbein, director of the University of North Georgia's (UNG) Institute for Healthy Aging, has worked with community leaders to help Gainesville, Georgia, become part of the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities.

"The mission of the Institute for Healthy Aging is to enhance the quality of life for older adults in our region," Elfenbein said. "Assisting our community in receiving this designation was a natural part of those efforts."

In addition to community initiatives to serve older adults, the Institute for Healthy Aging is the home of UNG's academic gerontology programs, offering an undergraduate gerontology minor as well as undergraduate and graduate certificates in gerontology. Starting in fall 2022, it will offer a nexus degree in applied gerontology with a concentration in family caregiving. 

Launched in April 2012, the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities is an organizational affiliate of the World Health Organization Global Network for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities, a program launched in 2006.

"If you want to do something innovative that involves older adults, Pamela Elfenbein is the go-to person," Phillippa Lewis Moss, director of Gainesville's Community Service Center, said. "Our community's AARP designation is a direct result of her passion and commitment to the aging population in the region."

Through the age-friendly program, AARP helps participating communities to become more livable and age-friendly by creating safer and more walkable streets, needed housing and transportation options, better access to key services, and opportunities for residents to participate in community activities.

The AARP designation, which runs for two years through August 2023, makes Gainesville the 579th community to join the network.

This distinction comes after Elfenbein led UNG to become the first Georgia institution to join the Age-Friendly University (AFU) Global Network in 2019.

As an age-friendly institution, UNG can collaborate with experts at top-tier universities who are members of the network such as Arizona State University, Concordia University Chicago, Florida State University, Purdue University, University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, and Washington University at St. Louis.

The Institute for Healthy Aging also partners with Wisdom Project 2030 in Hall County to provide a home for the community initiative's leadership training and access to UNG undergraduate and graduate students for service-learning opportunities.

In addition to helping secure the AARP recognition for Gainesville, Elfenbein was named to a three-year term on the Northeast Georgia Health System Advisory Council. The group facilitates broad-based information exchange on health-related issues affecting Gainesville-Hall County and the Northeast Georgia region.