Combating Ageism

Ageism is a worldwide problem. It is defined as discrimination or stereotypical views of people based on their age. My colleague, a physician and gerontologist, Dr. Robert Butler, coined the term to describe discrimination against older adults, old age, and the aging.  The World Health Organization has posted an online quiz regarding ageist attitudes that can be accessed below. 

Why is it important to address ageism?  Studies have shown that ageism is harmful to the health of older adults.  A recent systematic study of the previously published scholarly literature examined 638 papers in 14 databases to determine the health consequences of ageism and age bias and to further understand health inequities.  Critical analysis of the data found that “ageism led to significantly worse health outcomes in 95.55 of the studies” (Change et al, 2020, p. 1). Detailed data analysis revealed 84.6% of older adults were denied healthcare access and treatments (p. 7).

The Chang et al. (2020) study followed a previous examination of the cost of ageism. Originally published in 2018, Levy, Slade, Chang, Kannoth, and Wang (2020) conducted a quantitative study of the costs of ageism by analyzing comprehensive health care spending data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and other reporting agencies.  They found excessive health care costs due to ageism and calculated that $63 billion annually is related to ageism and discrimination against older adults (Levy et al., 2020).

Ageism is a serious problem. Ageism not only negatively impacts health, but it results in lower quality of life. For example, losing a job because age or being denied promotions. Older adults have reported receiving lower quality of service in hotels and restaurants. Have you noticed that the media stereotypes older adults as hard of hearing, ugly, disabled, frail, cognitively impaired, forgetful, and unfamiliar with digital devices? Learn all you can about ageism, be mindful of it, and take corrective action.  Companies advertising in print and visual media that embrace ageism? Don't buy their products and send them an email telling them why. You can't change the attitudes of the masses, but hitting companies where it hurts is a start. Bye for now!  AgeDoc

References:

Chang, E., Kannoth, S., Levy, S., Wang, S., Lee, J.F., & Levy, B.R., (2020). Global reach of ageism on older persons’ health: A systematic review. PLOS ONE, 15(1). Retrieved from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0220857

Levy, B.R., Slade, M.D., Chang, E., Kannoth, S., & Wang, S., Ageism amplifies cost and prevalence of health conditions. The Gerontologist, 60(1), p. 174-181. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gny131

WHO ageism quiz:   https://www.who.int/ageing/features/attitudes-quiz/en/