Purpose: Describe community nurses’ experiences regarding the meaning and promotion of healthy aging in northeastern Thailand. 

Method: Data were collected through five focus group interviews with 36 community nurses in northeastern Thailand. Latent content analysis was conducted to analyze the data. 

Findings: Healthy aging was characterized by the interconnection of older persons, older persons’ family members and the community. Healthy aging was associated with two themes: “being strong” and “being a supporter and feeling supported”. The nurses’ experiences in promoting healthy aging were described using the themes “providing health assessment”, “sharing knowledge” and “having limited resources”. 

Conclusions: The findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of the meaning of healthy aging from a holistic viewpoint. Community nurses must pay attention to older persons and their surroundings when planning how to promote healthy aging. Person-centredness should be applied in practice to promote healthy aging. The current findings contribute useful information that should help policy makers develop healthy-aging strategies in Thailand. © The Author(s) 2017