Environments for Aging - Spring 2023 - 16

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q&a
International WELL Building Institute's
Whitney Gray talks WELL certification gaining
momentum in senior living
L
AUNCHED IN 2013, the WELL Building
Standard focuses on enhancing people's
health and well-being through the
built environment. In the last decade,
the program has gained traction across
a variety of sectors including senior living. Last
year, The International WELL Building Institute
(IWBI; New York), which operates the program,
announced that more than 600 senior living
communities around the world enrolled to pursue,
or have achieved, the WELL Health-Safety
Rating or WELL Certification. This activity represents
more than 30 million square feet and
a more than fourfold adoption increase in the
sector since a year ago.
Environments for Aging reached out to
Whitney Gray, senior vice president, research,
at IWBI, to discuss what's driving this momentum,
the different WELL programs impacting
senior living, and what she hopes to see happen
in 2023 and beyond.
EFA: What do you attribute to the growth in
the senior living sector's embrace of the WELL
Building Standard and WELL Health-Safety
Rating programs?
Whitney Gray
Gray: Approximately 49
million Americans are 65
and older, and nine out of
10 older adults prefer to age
in place, according to the
National Council on Aging.
Over the next 10-15 years,
the population of Americans
aged 65 years or older will more than double
to become about 25 percent of the U.S. population,
and for the first time in U.S. history, older
people will outnumber children. With nearly 1
billion seniors worldwide, where and how they
live is a critical societal question. As demographics
shift, we see movement in the industries that
support them-as we're seeing with senior living.
Along with improving the health, safety, and
well-being of its residents, senior living communities
that adopt WELL can also support the recruitment
and retention of senior housing employees,
which has become an industry-wide issue since
the pandemic.
Did you see this momentum building before the
pandemic, or has that contributed to this growth?
The pandemic has increased expectations for
safer environments for living and working. The
pressure is high for senior living facilities to follow
the science and find ways to communicate
their evidence-based practices to residents and
families. It has also shown us the vulnerabilities
of our elder population, and certainly spurred
increased WELL adoption across the sector, but
societal demographic shifts had already spurred
the sector to embrace WELL prior to COVID-19.
Briefly explain the relationship between WELL
Certification and the WELL Health-Safety Rating.
Spanning 108 features and 10 concepts, certification
through the WELL Building Standard
provides a holistic roadmap for improving the
quality of our air, water, and light with inspired
design decisions that not only keep us connected
but facilitate a good night's sleep, support
our mental health, and help us do our best work
every day. Projects pursuing evidence-based,
third-party verified WELL Certification can
earn points based on performance outcomes for
various policy, design, and operational strategies
and can achieve one of four certification levels:
Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum.
The WELL Health-Safety Rating for Facility
Operations and Management is based on a subset
of features in the WELL Building Standard
and is designed to address acute health threats
including COVID-19 and beyond. It is an evidence-based,
third-party verified rating for all
new and existing building and facility types.
To ensure that a space continues to meet updated
requirements, projects must recertify every
three years and ratings must be renewed on
an annual basis.
Is there one specific WELL intervention or
strategy related to design/build environment
that you're seeing being used more often in senior
living communities?
Each senior living organization that adopts
WELL will have a unique approach to the interventions
and strategies that best fit their community's
needs. One WELL strategy that has the
potential to positively impact senior living residents
is access to natural light and thereby a reduction
of the " sundowning effect " that causes
sleepiness and restlessness, as well as a decrease
in trips and falls. Other strategies may support
residents' cognition improvement, thermal
comfort, less reliance on medications, and more
emphasis on environmentally friendly materials,
nutrition, and social engagement.
What do you hope to see happen in 2023 for
WELL and the senior living sector?
We have already seen that WELL can highlight
senior living communities' commitment
to building a healthier and sustainable future,
and enhancing environmental, social, and
governance (ESG) performance by providing a
transparent and standardized method to
measure and report on human and social capital
metrics. Research shows that when organizations
support the health of their most valuable
assets-people-they often experience lower
turnover and burnout, as well as greater productivity
and engagement driving improvements
for their bottom line. Investors, regulators, and
organizations are prioritizing non-financial
indicators to better understand risk and return
and demonstrate value and impact.
For more, visit wellcertified.com.-AD
16 | spring 2023
efamagazine.com
http://www.wellcertified.com http://www.efamagazine.com
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