Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

This poster is the result of a qualitative interpretative approach, carried out through interviews, participant observation, and field journals developed in the context of the La Localidad of Ciudad Bolívar, one of the poorest territorial divisions of the city of Bogotá, Colombia. We investigate the way in which the elderly experience living alone and their health in this socioeconomic context. An analysis was made based on the Healthy Cities Model of the WHO over the experiences and daily journeys of five elderly people, one man and four women, all over sixty-five years, who inhabit the locality. It is proposed that living alone and loneliness as a condition or state is not experienced homogeneously among the elderly, but that they have a common base in terms of the context of exclusion they live, within which people and communities seek and develop strategies to live according to their abilities and available resources.