To explore the value of living in a life plan community, Mather Institute embarked on the Age Well Study, the first large-scale national evaluation on health and wellness among residents of life plan communities, conducted from 2018 to 2022.

The five-year study was designed by Mather Institute in collaboration with Northwestern University, and included a total of more than 8,200 residents living in 122 life plan communities across the US. Resident participants were surveyed annually and, in years 1 (2018) and 5 (2022), their responses were compared their to a demographically similar sample of

older adults living in the community at large, pulled from data in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

In the latest, year 5 survey, Mather says residents continued to report significantly better physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and vocational wellness than their community-dwelling counterparts.

The survey also found:

-Between 2018 and 2022, changes in social and intellectual wellness tended to be more favorable for residents, while changes in emotional and spiritual wellness tended to be more favorable for those in the community.

- Changes in physical and vocational wellness were similar for both groups.

Mather notes that in year 5, more than 50% of community-at-large responses were received prior to the start of the pandemic (surveyed between April 2018–June 2019 and March 2020–March 2021) versus 100% of residents responding two years into the pandemic.

The comparison will be updated in 2024, when additional data is available for older adults in the community. Meanwhile, to access the current year 5 findings, click here