The City of Salem is dedicated to being an ideal place for people of all ages and abilities to live, work, learn and play. Towards this goal the City applied, and was accepted, to the World Health Organization’s Network of Age-Friendly Communities in 2015. Almost entirely directed by passionate resident leaders from Salem and with the support and enthusiasm of Mayor Kimberly Driscoll and participating City Departments, a series of activities were undertaken to assess the needs of Salem’s older adult population. In June 2016, the City of Salem invited collaboration from the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging in the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston to guide the development of an Age-Friendly action plan. The contents of these collaborative planning efforts are described in detail in this report.

The contents of this report are formed by results of a community needs assessment effort taken up by the City of Salem, the results of which can be found in a separate document (see Additional Files below). Elements of this needs assessment include a demographic profile of Salem, a series of three focus groups, and a systematic review of existing documents in Salem, all of which were conducted by researchers at the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston. In addition, the results of six public listening sessions and a web-based community survey are included in the needs assessment document. These two efforts were facilitated by leaders in the community and, together, included input from over 500 residents of Salem.