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The purpose of this paper is to explore the experience of older people and their sense of developing wellbeing, including consideration of the strategies they employ to respond to perceived risk.

An Appreciative Inquiry study was used, which collected data with 58 participants in focus group and individual interviews. Interviews focussed on ways in which older people in South Africa, Australia, Germany and the UK understand and seek to maintain wellbeing.

The changing time horizons of older people lead to perceptions of risk and concerns that embrace societal as well as individual concerns. Often, this leads to a sense of societal responsibility and desire for social change, which is frustrated by a perceived exclusion from participation in society.

In mental health practice and education, it is imperative to embrace the shift from ageist concerns (with later life viewed as risky and tragic in itself) towards a greater sensitivity for older people’s resilience, the strategies they deploy to maintain this, and their desire for more control and respect for their potential to contribute to society.

Variation in time horizons leads to changes in temporal accounting, which may be under-utilised by society. Consequently, societies may not recognise and support the resilience of older people to the detriment of older people as individuals and to the wider society.

In this paper, findings from a detailed literature review (which was commissioned in March 2002 by Queen Margaret University College, UK) on Gypsy/Travellers’ health are presented as well as suggestions on where “gaps” exist in related empirical research. The review found that much of the existing research is out of date and found few thorough empirical studies of the health of Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland. The authors found that a predominant focus within the literature concerns health beliefs and cultural practices, with far less discussion about the material problems of poverty and social exclusion which affect Traveller communities. Emphasis is given in this paper to problems of access, health inequalities and wider concerns with social inclusion/exclusion. The authors identify the main challenges for health promotion among Gypsy/Traveller families in Scotland and argue that a key route to tackling social exclusion may lie in adopting a community development approach.