Supporting meaningful community engagement. Commentary on “Exploring social participation among older adults with intellectual disabilities in Chile: barriers, opportunities, and adaptive strategies” (Álvarez-Aguado et al., 2026)

As described by the authors, the global ‘ageing’ phenomenon is both exacerbating existing inequities in support systems and presenting new challenges to policy makers and service providers around the world (Álvarez-Aguado et al., Citation2026). When specifically considering this issue for people ageing with an intellectual disability, their historically lower life expectancy when compared to the mainstream population (e.g., Coppus, Citation2013) has meant that many fundamental needs and desires of this cohort of our community are still yet to be adequately explored (McCausland et al., Citation2021). This article examines social participation; while this has been identified as a key aspect of ‘active ageing’ by the World Health Organization (WHO) for over a decade (e.g., WHO, Citationn.d.; WHO, Citation2015), social participation has generally received less direct attention than issues such as emerging healthcare concerns for people with lifelong intellectual disability (Bigby & Wiesel, Citation2019). Further, most of the existent research reports on residents of high-income countries or in urban areas (Wark, Citation2018). Although this article’s focus is on the Global South—specifically Chile—it provides readers with a wider perspective on facilitating appropriate social participation outside of service- and resource-rich settings, and which therefore has general relevance for lower- and middle-income countries, as well as rural locations. Chile also has an artificial government-level separation between the provision of disability and aged care programs, which is common with other countries, including Australia.