LOCAL COMMUNITY PROGRAMMES AND SUCCESSFUL AGEING: A STUDY FROM THE NORTH-EAST OF PORTUGAL.

The ageing of the population poses challenges for both policies and support systems for older people. In Bragança, a city in the North-East of Portugal, this phenomenon has a great impact and that is why the municipality is implementing community programmes to promote successful ageing. Objective: examine indicators of successful ageing in people aged 55 and over that participate in community programmes, using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). A total of 50 were randomly selected and another 50 persons joined the previous group according to gender and age stratification criteria, resulting in a total of 100 in two sub-samples: the group that took part in municipal communiy programmes and the group that did not participate in such programmes. In both groups a multidimensional gerontological evaluation was applied to collect sociodemographic characteristics, cognitive performance, psychological well-being, social net work and independence for instrumental activities of daily living . Based on the proximity between the categories of social spaces, it was observed that participants involved in community programmes showed higher levels of psychological well-being and independence in instrumental activities. The group that did not participate in the community programmes showed higher risk of isolation, lower psychological well-being, higher level of dependence and low cognitive performance. The evidence shows the importance of this type of programmes for a successful ageing and that the methodology of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) stands as a good strategy to evaluate the benefits of these programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]