Aging-Friendly Certification of Community Canteen Service for the Elderly in China: A Review of Literature

The aging of China’s population has led to assisted feeding services becoming essential to community-based home care services. Service certification is a conformity assessment activity determining whether an organization’s service capacity meets the relevant service standards. It can be used to regulate the level of service suitability of community canteens for the elderly by providing “aging-friendly” certification. This study undertook a systematic review method to investigate the necessity and feasibility of “aging-friendly” service certification for community canteens catering to the elderly. We explored the development trend of “aging-friendly” by investigating relevant standards for community canteen services for the elderly in China. The study found that while some aging-friendly factors were included in the standards, there was still insufficient consideration of the physical, psychological, and behavioral characteristics of the elderly. Therefore, we can conclude that proposing “aging-friendly” certification of services in community canteens for the elderly aligns with the domestic community development trend and promotes the development of multiple levels of certification of services in community canteens. This work could assist future community canteens in developing personalized and differentiated assisted feeding services that better meet the diverse needs of the elderly in accordance with local conditions.