Jockey Club Institute of Ageing: The 2014 HKJC Grant and the \"Age-Friendly City\" Vision

# Jockey Club Institute of Ageing: The 2014 HKJC Grant and the "Age-Friendly City" Vision

In a sentence: The CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing was formally established in August 2014 with a HK$12 million donation from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust^※ (covering its first five years of operating costs). With "making Hong Kong an age-friendly city in the world" as its core mission, the Institute draws together medicine, nursing, psychology, architecture, social work, and other disciplines to serve as the institutional hub for ageing research within the CUHK Faculty of Medicine.

# Why was the Institute founded in 2014?

The pace of population ageing in Hong Kong dictated the urgency of a policy response. According to population data published by the CUHK S.H. Ho Centre for Gerontology and Geriatrics^※, the proportion of the population aged 65 and above was projected to rise from 11.7% in 2003 to 27%^※ by 2033 (source: Census and Statistics Department mid-year population projections, base year 2003). In other words, roughly a quarter of Hong Kong's population will be elderly by that point, with the median age climbing from 38 to 49. At the same time, Hong Kong's life expectancy already ranks among the top three globally^※. The combined demand for medical and community care from an ageing population represents a dual challenge.

It was against this backdrop that The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust proactively donated HK$12 million in August 2014, partnering with CUHK to establish the Jockey Club Institute of Ageing. The donation was one of two major projects funded by the Club that year — the other, announced the same day, was a HK$1.3 billion^※ contribution towards the construction of CUHK's teaching hospital, which the Club's official press release characterised as "the largest single medical donation in the Club's history."

# Who is Professor Jean Woo, and why was she appointed the first Director?

According to the Institute's official "About Us" page^※ and the 2014 press release^※, Professor Jean Woo was appointed as the Institute's first Director. Her full title is Emeritus Professor, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, and Henry G Leong Research Professor of Gerontology and Geriatrics, CUHK Faculty of Medicine.

Before taking up the directorship, Professor Woo was already the academic lead for another major Jockey Club-funded flagship ageing initiative — the CADENZA programme (CADENZA: A Jockey Club Initiative for Seniors). Led by the CUHK Nethersole School of Nursing, CADENZA was a territory-wide, cross-disciplinary gerontology education and community project that provided training for nursing and social welfare professionals, elderly carers, and the general public. The founding of the Institute can be seen as the next stage — elevating the gerontology resources and research momentum accumulated through CADENZA into a more formal institutional structure.

# What is the Institute's mission and interdisciplinary shape?

According to the Institute's background page^※, its stated vision is "to make Hong Kong an age-friendly city in the world," pursued through "research, policy advocacy, community outreach, and knowledge transfer to promote a comprehensive active-ageing strategy." This formulation places academic research, policy practice, and community implementation on an equal footing, rather than framing the Institute as a purely laboratory-driven body.

The Institute's interdisciplinary architecture is well illustrated on its organisational structure page^※. It comprises multiple research centres and collaborative centres, with Fellows drawn from the following disciplines:

The Associate Directors are Professor Helene Fung of the Department of Psychology and Professor Timothy Kwok of the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics. This configuration — pairing medicine with the social sciences on an equal footing — represents a relatively uncommon "broad-spectrum interdisciplinary" model among gerontology research bodies in Hong Kong.

# What are the Institute's main research priorities?

According to the Institute's "Research Strength on Ageing" page^※, the Institute consolidates CUHK's existing ageing-research base and focuses on the following thematic areas:

• Geriatric medicine and psychosocial gerontology: The CUHK S.H. Ho Centre for Gerontology and Geriatrics has been conducting research in this area since 1998^※, making it one of the Institute's earliest academic forerunners.
• Dementia research: Advanced through the Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing.
• Sarcopenia and osteoporosis: Studies on the effects of exercise and nutritional interventions on sarcopenia, with related projects delivered via the Jockey Club Osteoporosis Care and Control Centre.
• Geriatric nutrition: Research into the role of diet and other lifestyle factors in preventing common age-related chronic diseases.
• Gerontechnology: Development and promotion of technology applications that support active ageing.
• Community end-of-life care: Participation in the Jockey Club End-of-Life Community Care Project (JCECC) in collaboration with institutions including The University of Hong Kong.

On the policy research front, a team led by Professor Jean Woo published a journal article^※ in Nutrition, Health and Aging in 2020 that systematically tracked changes in the Hong Kong Elderly Quality of Life Index (HKEQOL) across four domains between 2017 and 2020. The study demonstrated that age-friendly city policies initially improved elderly well-being, but that the social unrest of 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic caused the composite score to plunge from 100.95 to 93.22 points. This stands as a rare example among the Institute's outputs of a controlled study using data to show the impact of policy and social shocks side by side.

# How is the "Age-Friendly City" vision put into practice?

The "Age-Friendly City" concept originates from the World Health Organization (WHO) framework, which emphasises the dual role of the urban built environment and social inclusion in healthy ageing. The Institute translates this vision into concrete action through the following projects:

The AgeWatch Index and the Hong Kong Elderly Quality of Life Index (HKEQOL)

According to the Institute's AgeWatch page^※, the Institute has participated in the global AgeWatch Index since 2014 and has developed a localised Hong Kong version. Hong Kong ranked 24th out of 97 countries and regions in the 2014 Global AgeWatch Index^※ (overall ranking; source: Global AgeWatch Index 2014). Within the sub-domains, "health status" (9th) and "enabling environment" (4th) stood out, while "income security" (75th) lagged significantly behind. Professor Jean Woo remarked at the time that Hong Kong performed "quite well" on health and social environment indicators, but that there was still room for improvement in elderly mental health and social connectedness. Hong Kong's rank rose to 19th in the 2015 index.

The Jockey Club Age-Friendly City Project

In 2015, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust allocated over HK$100 million^※ to spearhead the "Jockey Club Age-Friendly City Project," commissioning four local gerontology research bodies — the CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, the Sau Po Centre on Ageing at HKU's Faculty of Social Sciences, the Institute of Active Ageing at PolyU, and the Asia-Pacific Institute of Ageing Studies at Lingnan University — to conduct baseline assessments of "age-friendliness" across all 18 Hong Kong districts using the WHO's eight-domain framework.

According to a Jockey Club corporate news release (May 2016)^※, the baseline surveys across eight pilot districts between 2015 and 2016 interviewed over 4,200 respondents. Results showed that "social participation" (55.6% positive rating) and "transportation" (53%) scored highest, while "housing" (37.9%) and "community support and health services" (37.7%) most urgently needed improvement. The findings were used by District Councils to formulate three-year action plans.

The Institute published a comprehensive volume stemming from the project — Strategies for Creating an Age-Friendly City: Hong Kong as a Case Study — to provide an evidence base for policy advocacy.

# What are the Institute's roots in the CUHK Faculty of Medicine's gerontology tradition?

The Institute was not built from scratch; it carries forward more than two decades of gerontology work within the CUHK Department of Medicine and Therapeutics. The S.H. Ho Centre for Gerontology and Geriatrics had been conducting research into geriatric medicine and psychosocial topics as early as 1998^※. Professor Jean Woo's own academic career also began at that centre, with research spanning nutritional strategies for the elderly, the impact of living environments on health, and the development and application of active-ageing and frailty indices. This body of research laid the academic foundations for the Institute's framework at its founding in 2014.

In terms of Jockey Club-funded antecedents, the Institute traces its lineage back to the CADENZA programme. Launched in 2008 with Club funding and led by the Nethersole School of Nursing, CADENZA centred on interdisciplinary professional education and training, delivering gerontological knowledge to nursing and social welfare workers, elderly caregivers, and the public across Hong Kong. The Institute's establishment in 2014 can be seen as the next step — institutionalising research and scaling up policy advocacy on top of CADENZA's educational base.

# Overview of Major Projects

The table below lists representative projects under the Institute, drawing on the Institute's official website^※.

# Related Reading

This article belongs to the 11-medical-hospital module. Related files:

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