This important book provides a comprehensive survey of different strategies for developing age-friendly communities, and the extent to which older people themselves can be involved in the co-production of age-friendly policies and practices.
The guide is aimed primarily at urban planners, but older citizens can use it to monitor progress towards more age-friendly cities. At its heart is a checklist of age-friendly features. For example, an age-friendly city has sufficient public benches that are well-situated, well-maintained and safe, as well as sufficient public toilets that are clean, secure, accessible by people with disabilities and well-indicated. Other key features of an age-friendly city include: well-maintained and well-lit sidewalks; public buildings that are fully accessible to people with disabilities; city bus drivers who wait until older people are seated before starting off and priority seating on buses; enough reserved parking spots for people with disabilities; housing integrated in the community that accommodates changing needs and abilities as people grow older; friendly, personalized service and information instead of automated answering services; easy-to-read written information in plain language; public and commercial services and stores in neighbourhoods close to where people live, rather than concentrated outside the city; and a civic culture that respects and includes older persons.
According to the US Census Bureau, the US population aged 65+ years is expected to nearly double over the next 30 years, from 43.1 million in 2012 to an estimated 83.7 million in 2050. These demographic advances, however extraordinary, have left our health systems behind as they struggle to reliably provide evidence-based practice to every older adult at every care interaction. Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), in partnership with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA), designed Age-Friendly Health Systems to meet this challenge head on. Age-Friendly Health Systems aim to: Follow an essential set of evidence-based practices; Cause no harm; and Align with What Matters to the older adult and their family caregivers.
Creating Aging-Friendly Communities examines the need to redesign America's communities to respond to our aging society. What differentiates it from other books is its breadth of focus, evidence-based consideration of key infrastructure characteristics, and examination of the strengths and limitations of promising approaches for fostering aging-friendly communities.
The "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: States of the Art and Future Perspectives" publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities.
Ageing populations represent a key global challenge for the twenty-first century. Few areas of life will remain untouched by the accompanying changes to cultural, economic and social life. This book interrogates various understandings of ageing, and provides a critical assessment of attitudes and responses to the development of ageing societies, placing these in the context of a variety of historical and sociological debates. Written in a highly accessible style, this book examines a range of topics, including demographic change across high- and low-income countries, theories of social ageing, changing definitions of 'age', retirement trends, family and intergenerational relations, poverty and inequality, and health and social care in later life. The book also considers the key steps necessary in preparing for the social transformation which population ageing will bring. Ageing provides a fresh and original approach to a topic of central concern to students and scholars working in sociology, social policy and wider social science disciplines and the humanities.
In sub-Saharan Africa, older people make up a relatively small fraction of the total population and are supported primarily by family and other kinship networks. They have traditionally been viewed as repositories of information and wisdom, and are critical pillars of the community but as the HIV/AIDS pandemic destroys family systems, the elderly increasingly have to deal with the loss of their own support while absorbing the additional responsibilities of caring for their orphaned grandchildren. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa explores ways to promote U.S. research interests and to augment the sub-Saharan governments' capacity to address the many challenges posed by population aging. Five major themes are explored in the book such as the need for a basic definition of "older person," the need for national governments to invest more in basic research and the coordination of data collection across countries, and the need for improved dialogue between local researchers and policy makers. This book makes three major recommendations: 1) the development of a research agenda 2) enhancing research opportunity and implementation and 3) the translation of research findings.
Social isolation and loneliness are serious yet underappreciated public health risks that affect a significant portion of the older adult population. Approximately one-quarter of community-dwelling Americans aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated, and a significant proportion of adults in the United States report feeling lonely. People who are 50 years of age or older are more likely to experience many of the risk factors that can cause or exacerbate social isolation or loneliness, such as living alone, the loss of family or friends, chronic illness, and sensory impairments. Over a life course, social isolation and loneliness may be episodic or chronic, depending upon an individual's circumstances and perceptions. A substantial body of evidence demonstrates that social isolation presents a major risk for premature mortality, comparable to other risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, or obesity. As older adults are particularly high-volume and high-frequency users of the health care system, there is an opportunity for health care professionals to identify, prevent, and mitigate the adverse health impacts of social isolation and loneliness in older adults. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults summarizes the evidence base and explores how social isolation and loneliness affect health and quality of life in adults aged 50 and older, particularly among low income, underserved, and vulnerable populations. This report makes recommendations specifically for clinical settings of health care to identify those who suffer the resultant negative health impacts of social isolation and loneliness and target interventions to improve their social conditions. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults considers clinical tools and methodologies, better education and training for the health care workforce, and dissemination and implementation that will be important for translating research into practice, especially as the evidence base for effective interventions continues to flourish.
The Handbook of Sociology of Aging is the most comprehensive, engaging, and up-to-date treatment of developments within the field over the past 30 years. The volume represents an indispensable source of the freshest and highest standard scholarship for scholars, policy makers, and aging professionals alike. The Handbook of Sociology of Aging contains 45 far-reaching chapters, authored by nearly 80 of the most renowned experts, on the most pressing topics related to aging today. With its recurring attention to the social forces that shape human aging, and the social consequences and policy implications of it, the contents will be of interest to everyone who cares about what aging means for individuals, families, and societies. The chapters of the Handbook of Sociology of Aging illustrate the field’s extraordinary breadth and depth, which has never before been represented in a single volume. Its contributions address topics that range from foundational matters, such as classic and contemporary theories and methods, to topics of longstanding and emergent interest, such as social diversity and inequalities, social relationships, social institutions, economies and governments, social vulnerabilities, public health, and care arrangements. The volume closes with a set of personal essays by senior scholars who share their experiences and hopes for the field, and an essay by the editors that provides a roadmap for the decade ahead. The Handbook of Sociology of Aging showcases the very best that sociology has to offer the study of human aging.
The many significant technological and medical advances of the 21st century cannot overcome the escalating risk posed to older adults by such stressors as pain, weakness, fatigue, depression, anxiety, memory and other cognitive deficits, hearing loss, visual impairment, isolation, marginalization, and physical and mental illness. In order to overcome these and other challenges, and to maintain as high a quality of life as possible, older adults and the professionals who treat them need to promote and develop the capacity for resilience, which is innate in all of us to some degree. The purpose of this book is to provide the current scientific theory, clinical guidelines, and real-world interventions with regard to resilience as a clinical tool. To that end, the book addresses such issues as concepts and operationalization of resilience; relevance of resilience to successful aging; impact of personality and genetics on resilience; relationship between resilience and motivation; relationship between resilience and survival; promoting resilience in long-term care; and the lifespan approach to resilience. By addressing ways in which the hypothetical and theoretical concepts of resilience can be applied in geriatric practice, Resilience in Aging provides inroads to the current knowledge and practice of resilience from the perspectives of physiology, psychology, culture, creativity, and economics. In addition, the book considers the impact of resilience on critical aspects of life for older adults such as policy issues (e.g., nursing home policies, Medicare guidelines), health and wellness, motivation, spirituality, and survival. Following these discussions, the book focuses on interventions that increase resilience. The intervention chapters include case studies and are intended to be useful at the clinical level. The book concludes with a discussion of future directions in optimizing resilience in the elderly and the importance of a lifespan approach to aging.