Ageism Awareness Day
Tomorrow, Friday October 7, is Ageism Awareness Day.
What is ageism and how common is it?
Aging is often view negatively in our society, and older people are often stereotyped as burdensome, dependent, and without value. Ageism – defined as discrimination based on age – has been described as “the last acceptable form of discrimination”. In one survey of over 2,000 adults aged 50 to 80 years old, 93% of participants reported regularly experiencing one or more forms of ageism – whether ageist messages, ageism in their interpersonal interactions, and/or dismissing their own experience by internalizing ageism.
Health care is not immune. In one survey of over 6,000 individuals, nearly 20% of Americans age 50 and older say they have experienced discrimination in health care settings, according to a 2015 study analyzing survey data from. The leading reported type of healthcare discrimination they reported? Discrimination based on age.
One common type of ageism in healthcare is that older adults’ concerns can be dismissed as simply part of normal aging. As described by one 84-year-old after a recent visit to the emergency room,
“When older people come in… they don’t get the same level of commitment to do something to rectify the situation. It’s like ‘Oh, here’s an old person with pain. Well, that happens a lot to older people.’”
On top of ageism, we also know that older adults of color are more likely to report experiencing healthcare discrimination than white older adults. One in four Black and Latinx/Hispanic adults age 60 and older reported being treated unfairly or feeling that their health concerns were not taken seriously by health professionals because of their racial or ethnic background.
What can I do about it?
On this Ageism Awareness day, let’s take a moment to consider how we treat older adults in our work and personal lives - and how we want to be treated as we age. Each of us - whether providing direct care, developing and managing programs, or just being a member of our local communities - can make a difference. What can you do to help create a health system in which you would want to receive care as an older adult, one in which far fewer than 20% of older adults report experience healthcare discrimination? What can you do to help ensure everyone has access to quality care, no matter their age?
Healthcare providers and students interested in learning more about what “normal aging” actually looks like and best practices for working with older adults can complete several free online modules from Rush’s CATCH-ON federally-funded HSRA Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program. There are also modules available for community members in English and Spanish.
To begin exploring ageism itself, I recommend listening to Ashton Applewhite’s Ted Talk called “Let’s end ageism”. In whatever way feels best to you, we encourage the CHaSCI community to consider any beliefs or assumptions you may have related to aging and to older adults. Reflection prompts and discussion starters can help get started; I recommend Ashton Applewhite’s toolkit: “Who me, ageist?”. The toolkit includes a few dozen prompts for reflection and discussion, such as:
“What does it mean when someone says, ‘I don’t feel old.’?”
Expanding our understanding of ageism: Learning from Martha Holstein, PhD
If you are interested in deepening your understanding of ageism, we are lucky to have a rich collection of books on aging recently get donated to the Rush University library. The books were given to Rush by the family of our colleague Martha Holstein, PhD, who passed away in November 2021 at 80 years old.
Dr. Holstein was a feminist scholar, gerontologist, and ethicist, and taught for several years at Loyola University and at Northwestern. She authored and edited several books to advance the field, including Women in Late Life: Critical Perspectives on Gender and Age (2015) and Ethics in Community-Based Elder Care (2001). Rush librarians are working now to incorporate her over 100 books into the Rush library so that Rush students and faculty can have access to references in the fields of aging, ethics, and feminism.
Throughout her work, Dr. Holstein challenged societal norms on aging. Reflecting on her experience as an older adult, she said,
“I encounter ageism all the time. I encounter salespeople calling me young lady. And when I say I’m actually an old lady, they say, “No, you’re not.” They don’t even let me be old.”
Dr. Holstein also had a knack for describing ageism in a way that helps capture how much we internalize ageism:
“When people say “you’re only as old as you feel”, they often mean that they don’t feel like the stereotypes of aging… We run from aging because the stereotypes are so negative.”
Another resource
The national Reframing Aging initiative has a number of helpful resources that will help you learn about effective ways to communicate about your work working with older adults - including their communication best practices toolkit.
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Bonnie Ewald