CEO Blog

The next few weeks at GSA offer some prime opportunities to share your science! Not only are we accepting abstracts for the 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting (until March 11), but GSA’s journals have three open calls for submissions across a wide range of disciplines.

GSA is now accepting abstract submissions for this November’s Annual Scientific Meeting! This is your chance to advance the science of aging — and as we take stock of the past year’s upheavals, we find that science was one of few arenas that brought us significant hope.

While the development of new COVID-19 vaccines may be the achievement most people remember from this time, there were critical advances in other important areas, too. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, Dr. Francis Collins, recently authored a blog highlighting many of them.

The U.S. is back as a full-fledged member of the World Health Organization (WHO) — and that bodes well for bringing a quicker end to the pandemic, the success of the “Decade of Healthy Ageing,” and many other things.

One of the first acts of Joe Biden’s presidency was to retract the withdrawal from WHO enacted by the previous administration. And for the icing on the cake, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci has been tapped to represent the U.S. on the WHO Executive Committee.

This week will witness the inauguration of our 46th president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Biden transition team has been navigating the normally delicate transition process made even more complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and an uncooperative outgoing administration.

The new administration finds itself preparing policy responses to multiple policy crises on day one. While acute policy responses will fill the initial weeks of the administration, there are longer-term aging issues that will need to be considered in the year ahead.

Fortunately, GSA has assembled the work of some top scholars to help illustrate many of these issues in the latest Public Policy & Aging Report (PP&AR), titled “Policy Considerations for a Post-COVID Presidency.”

Happy New Year! If one of your resolutions is to make a positive difference in people’s lives, the first new resource we’ve added to the GSA website in 2021 is an essential tool: COVID-19 vaccine information for older adults.

We recognize that our members are working with older adults and may get questions from family, friends, and colleagues about the COVID-19 vaccine. This fact sheet gives answers to common questions so that GSA members can share accurate information.