To date, we’ve spoken to 131 older adults over four listening sessions in Pennsylvania, Texas, Arizona, and Alabama. We will have an additional listening session in California. 

In the first round of listening sessions, we selected Pennsylvania, Texas, and Alabama to represent a diversity of geographic areas, population densities, political leanings, and U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) regions. 

In round two, we selected two additional locations, Arizona and California, to expand our data collection and ensure a broad range of perspectives. In the Arizona listening sessions, all 24 older adults engaged were of Native American or Native Hawaiian descent. For California, in addition to aiming for a participant sample of various races, ethnicities, and income levels, we seek to recruit two groups of older adults whose primary language is Spanish or Mandarin.

During these sessions, participants discussed their experiences and needs surrounding housing, in-home support, healthcare, community, and more. These listening sessions were supported by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Healthy Aging and Age-Friendly Communities and National Plan on Aging Community Engagement Collaborative and complimented their listening session with older adults in Washington, DC.

The first round of listening sessions in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Alabama were two and a half hours and began with an introduction by Rita Landgraf, the National Plan on Aging Community Engagement Collaborative’s facilitator. Then, we facilitated small group conversations in separate rooms, ensuring that participants had the space and quiet to engage comfortably and openly. Throughout these conversations, participants completed brief worksheets to capture initial thoughts before sharing. The worksheets helped prime participants to share and provided an additional avenue for feedback, particularly for those who preferred written responses over verbal participation. Following the session, we collected the worksheets, facilitator notes, and discussion transcripts to capture a comprehensive view of participants’ contributions.

After the sessions, we gathered 709 data points from captured notes and 396 participant worksheet pages. Each piece of data was grouped into themes clustered within the four inquiry areas.

Later in 2025, we will update this page with the data points and insights from the second round of Listening Sessions in Arizona and California.