Anne Seneca Terkelsen Receives Prestigious Grant

Anne Seneca Terkelsen, a PhD student at the Health Promotion Research Unit, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Esbjerg, has been awarded a grant of DKK 20,000 by the Esbjerg Foundation at the E.1 Awards ceremony held at the Esbjerg Concert Hall on 28 November 2024.

The award recognises her PhD project, Healthy Ageing in the Senior Village – A Community Initiative, which explores how older adults engage with and experience an age-friendly initiative, as well as how moving to a senior village impacts their health and well-being.

Recognising Research Excellence

Anne’s research contributes new insights into how municipalities can create age-friendly environments that support social networks and healthy ageing among older residents.

Research with Societal Impact

Her work is rooted in Esbjerg Municipality’s vision to establish an age-friendly senior village. Through a comprehensive study, she investigated a co-creation initiative involving seniors, the municipality, and a property company, focusing on changes in the residents’ quality of life, loneliness, and social interactions following their move to the senior village. The project aligns with the World Health Organization’s strategy for healthy ageing, with Esbjerg Municipality being the first Danish municipality included in WHO's network of age-friendly cities.

The findings demonstrate that a healthy ageing environment can be established through collaborative efforts, with the move to the senior village improving the residents’ quality of life, reducing loneliness, and enhancing their social networks and participation in activities. This underscores the potential benefits of such environments for healthy ageing.

– The study population in the senior village was small, making the results on quality of life, loneliness, and social relationships not immediately generalisable. In the future, it would be interesting to compare the senior village with other similar housing options for older adults and to explore the impact of social communities on the residents' quality of life and loneliness using a more qualitative approach.

A Prize of Great Significance

The Esbjerg Foundation’s grant is an important recognition of Anne Seneca Terkelsen’s research and its societal relevance. According to her, the prize serves as motivation to expand the research with a more qualitative focus on how age-friendly cities can be developed and scaled to other municipalities.

– Although three years may seem like a long time for a PhD project, in research terms it is relatively short, especially when accommodating multiple stakeholders with different perspectives and goals. At SDU, we maintain a clear focus on what is feasible within a research framework, whereas, for example, the municipality may have specific ideas and expectations about what should be studied.

About the Project

The project Healthy Ageing in the Senior Village – A Community Initiative ran from 2021 to 2024 and was a collaboration between SDU, Esbjerg Municipality, and Claus Sørensen Ejendomme A/S. Its aim was to create a safe environment promoting healthy ageing and social connections among older residents.

Other Award Recipients from SDU Esbjerg

In addition to the grant awarded to Anne Seneca Terkelsen, two other prizes were presented at this year’s E.1 Awards. The Well-being Award went to Inês Sousa Cabral Mendes and Inês De Fátima Arsénio Simões, and Henrik Uhd Christensen’s Travel Grant was awarded to Karoline Lautrup-Nielsen. All three recipients are students at SDU Esbjerg.