Utah, nation prepared for aging boom?

In Utah, we age well and we age in place, preferring to grow old in Manti and Taylorsville instead of moving to Miami or Tucson. So by the year 2030 it's predicted that the population of people 65 and older will grow even more than in the country at large.

The trick, says Utah Commission on Aging executive director Maureen Henry, is to not just plan specific services for aging baby boomers but to plan all our communities so they are aging-friendly.

"We know there is this balloon that will slowly blow up in the next 30 years, and we want to avoid a situation where there's a corresponding balloon in the burden on state services," Henry said.

A national study released Wednesday argues that less than half of the nation's communities have begun preparing to deal with the needs of the elderly, whose ranks will swell dramatically with the aging of the boomer generation.

The report, sponsored by the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, or n4a, surveyed nearly 1,800 towns, counties and other municipalities and found that just 46 percent are looking at strategies to deal with their aging populations.

By 2030, the number of people older than 65 in the United States will exceed 71 million, double the number in 2000. In Utah the numbers are predicted to increase by 2.8 times, to 531,420 seniors.

By 2030, the percent of people 65 and older in Utah will go from 8.5 percent to about 13 percent — "and that's in a very young state" with the lowest median age in the country, notes Randy Moon, research analyst with the Utah Division of Aging and Adult Services.

The national n4a report does not look at Utah specifically. By Henry's assessment, Utah's communities are a mixed bag in their response to the needs of the elderly. "There are some really wonderful things going on, but there's probably room for improvement," she said, citing housing and transportation as the most critical needs.

"It all comes back to the characteristics you want in an aging-friendly community, including walkability and access to transportation options." With the typical suburb cul-de-sac design, "you could be a couple hundred yards from a bus stop but have to walk a couple of miles to get there. ... Utah is one of the most urbanized states in the nation, and yet this is a very un-urban way of developing communities."

There's no question that communities need to provide services to the "frail and vulnerable," she said. But the equally pressing question is: "How do we keep people out of that frail and vulnerable population?"