Articles
The Journal on Active Aging brings articles of value to professionals dedicated to older-adult quality of life. Content sweeps across the active-aging landscape to focus on education and practice. Find articles of interest by searching the article archives in three ways: Enter a keyword in the articles search bar; click on search by topic; or type a keyword or phrase in the general search bar at the top of the page.
Topic- Trends
The future of aging, part one: trends and issues that are shaping the industry by Jenifer Milner
Whether you’ve worked in the field of aging for 5, 10 or 20 years, you’ll know it’s been undergoing tremendous change. The pace and scope of that change will only increase as population aging, compounded by changing consumer demands and needs, transforms the world around us. What issues are already emerging for organizations and professionals that work in the aging field, particularly those dedicated to active aging? What trends may shape the industry—and opportunities—moving forward? And what impact will they have? The International Council on Active Aging® (ICAA) polled members of its scientific and industry advisory boards on these topics. Many advisors weighed in with their ideas.
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Data pinpoint noteworthy trends at the intersection of green, active aging
The Natural Marketing Institute (NMI; www.nmisolutions.com) is a marketing consulting and research firm that focuses on health, wellness and sustainability, including the Baby Boomer market and their attitudes and behaviors with respect to green products and services. NMI also developed the LOHAS [Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability] segmentation model, a way of looking at the adult green market that is being used globally.
Broadly, with respect to Boomers, NMI has found that “consumption and possession are being replaced by sustainability and purpose, which are revealed in Boomers’ growing understanding of the fusion of personal and planetary health – that in fact, one cannot be healthy without the other.”1 How does that growing understanding translate into action, and what are the implications for the active-aging industry? ICAA’s Green Guide spoke with Steve French, NMI’s managing partner, to find out.
Trends
'CCRCs without walls' encourage aging in place, life care and wellness by Marilynn Larkin, MA
A trend by any other name is still a trend—and that’s the case for “CCRCs without walls,” also known as “life care at home,” “retirement community without walls” and “continuing care at home.” At the heart of the concept is “one-stop shopping” for a lifetime of care, according to Sarah Lentz Spellman, LNHA, director of ThirdAge, a division of the consulting firm CliftonLarsonAllen, LLP, in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. Spellman helped start one of the first CCRCs without walls—Cadbury at Home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey—in 1998. Hired to serve as executive director, she developed “all the policies, procedures—everything it took to get the program up and running,” Spellman says. She now advises other organizations interested in setting up a similar model.
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Technology for aging in place: a market overview by Laurie M. Orlov
Eighty percent of older people today live in their own homes. Not surprisingly, the majority of them would like to stay there, and if they move, according to the AARP, it will be to another private home. The desire to live at home will dominate the minds of Baby Boomers—in 2011 becoming older adults (age 65) at the rate of 10,000 per day—and will reshape the markets that provide products and services to them. Further, in the 2011 housing market crisis, many who would move to more appropriate homes cannot.
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A new era: the BOOMing opportunities of population aging by Colin Milner
American evangelist Billy Graham may have said it best: “The best way to meet the challenges of old age is to prepare for them now, before they arrive.”1 With decades of warning, are businesses prepared today to meet the needs of an aging population?
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Shaping vibrant affordable communities: insights, observations and trends
What makes a great neighborhood? The American Planning Association (APA), a nonprofit that provides leadership in the development of vital communities, highlights examples every year as part of its Great Places in America program. To choose the honorees, APA considers criteria in three categories: neighborhood form and composition, neighborhood character and personality, and neighborhood environment and sustainable practices. In 2008, the 40,000-strong education and membership association named California’s Echo Park, a suburb of Los Angeles, to its list of 10 Great Neighborhoods in America.
Just two miles northwest of downtown LA, Echo Park “is a vibrant mix of cultures, incomes, architecture, commercial activity, and social activism that has retained its unique character and charm for more than a century,” observes APA.1 Among Echo Park’s historical landmarks is the Angelus Temple, opened in 1923 by the Foursquare Church.2 Over the years, the church has grown into an international Christian denomination, with almost 64,000 churches and meeting places worldwide, including nearly 1,800 in the United States.2 And the Foursquare Foundation, established in 2005, has funded projects in over 103 countries.3 The Foundation has recently been exploring opportunities closer to home, and is starting to develop underused church properties into affordable seniors housing.
