Mar 4, 2021
The COVID pandemic brought to light many things, including how society views older adults. Louise Aronson wrote a piece in the NY Times titled “‘Covid-19 Kills Only Old People.’ Only? Why are we OK with old people dying?”. The ageist viewpoint she was rallying against was also brought to light in a study of ageism in social media. When looking at those tweets that were related to older adults and covid, more than 1 in 10 tweets implied that either the life of older adults was less valuable or that it downplayed the pandemic because it mostly harms older adults.
So on today's podcast we are going to talk about the initiative to “Reframe Aging” with Patricia D'Antonio. Patricia is a geriatric pharmacist, and the Vice President of Professional Affairs at the Gerontological Society of America (GSA).
The Reframing Aging initiative is a national effort, led by GSA and supported by Archstone Foundation, uses an evidence-based approach to communicating more effectively about older adults. There are a variety of resources available, including research reports, an online toolkit, and free instructional videos, to help us talk about our work in geriatrics and aging.
For information about the Reframing Aging Initiative, please check out their webpage www.reframingaging.org. In particular, check out these two helpful resources on their website:
- Finding the Frame: An Empirical Approach to Reframing Aging and Ageism (2017):
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- This report explains the process and research behind the development of the evidence-based reframing aging narratives shown to improve attitudes toward aging and to boost understanding of the structural and systemic changes needed to capture the longevity dividend.
- Reframing Aging: Effect of a Short-Term Framing Intervention on Implicit Measures of Age Bias (2019)
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- This article appearing in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B describes the effect of a reframing aging intervention on implicit age bias.