Ageism Is Powerful, and So Are Our New Tools to Defeat It

Ageism is a threat to public health. Its harms in the U.S. health care arena alone amount to more than $63 billion annually. Ageism’s pervasiveness was a core reason GSA founded its National Center to Reframe Aging. And this Ageism Awareness Day (October 9), I’m proud to say that GSA has more powerful resources than ever to help individuals and our field address the underrecognized scourge of societal ageism.

The National Center itself has a growing body of resources to address ageism, which is central to its mission. The Center is hosting an October 15 webinar titled “What Comes Next? Moving from Ageism Awareness to Action,” which will be worth your time to view. You will gain ideas for using the principles to reframe aging to take the next step in your own organization and community.

GSA and the National Center also recently released a new Understanding Ageism course, which explores how perceptions of aging influence communication, health, and community life, and how individuals can create a more age- inclusive world for all of us as we age. It comes in two versions, one for student audiences (with a discount for undergraduates) and a separate version for professionals in the field.

Also this year, GSA, in collaboration with AARP, developed a new 45-minute lecture, “Recognizing and Addressing Ageism in Health Care,” to train future health professionals on how to recognize and stop age-based bias in healthcare. The lecture was designed to raise awareness, improve patient-provider communication, and refine clinical decision-making. This curricular resource, pilot tested with students across six disciplines, is available for faculty members nationwide to incorporate into their courses.

The GSA journals also have a rich history of articles on ageism, and we have curated a thematic collection on this topic featuring studies published in the last year.

Thank you to all in our membership who have advanced research to improve our understanding of ageism and its harms, and thank you to those willing to step up to take action to eliminate it from our society.