CEO Blog

With the opening of registration, excitement for the GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting Online is beginning to ramp up considerably. Many are eager for the chance to present their accepted research in front of the gerontological community, while others are fast preparing their submissions for the Late Beaker Poster Sessions. (The deadline is September 3.)

There’s also excitement because of the unparalleled accessibility to the programming that will be offered. Unlike GSA meetings past, all content will be available outside a single presentation window, with multiple ways to directly interact with presenters at the time of your choosing. So scheduling conflicts won’t be an issue.

The University of Michigan’s National Poll on Healthy Aging has released a new report, “Everyday Ageism and Health,” and some of the results are startling: more than 80 percent of the older adults polled say they commonly experience at least one form of ageism in their day-to-day lives. What’s more, the poll was conducted before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, where we’ve seen troubling narratives emerge about the value of older adults in our society.

“Understanding Ageism and COVID-19” is the latest in a series of resources that GSA has prepared in response to the ongoing pandemic. It’s an infographic that can help us all, as aging advocates, counter the inaccurate narratives about older people in public discourse today.

As GSA’s COVID-19 Task Force began its work, its members quickly identified ageism, and the perpetuation of ageist myths, as a major concern as evidenced by the coverage of the pandemic in the media. The infographic highlights several false narratives about older adults in the pandemic and reframes them in the context of science.

We’re living in a time when many feel it is difficult to fully protect our health. It sometimes seems we have little control as the specter of COVID-19 looms in the community. This historic pandemic has left many — perhaps older adults in particular — feeling cautious and fearful until the time that a vaccine is developed.

GSA’s National Adult Vaccination Program (NAVP) Workgroup has put together a new fact sheet, “Aging and Immunity: Why Older Adults Are Particularly Susceptible to Diseases Like COVID-19,” that provides valuable information about our immune systems and provides details about the complexities involved in creating a vaccine. Public-private partnerships and manufacturers are moving at a historic pace to bring a safe and effective vaccine to market. While a vaccine may be ready by the end of the year, it may also be significantly longer.

In case you missed it among the crush of emails, text messages, webinars, etc., over the past two weeks, I encourage you to take three minutes to watch a message from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres as he lays out key tenets of how we should respond globally to the rash of ageism confronting us during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He gave a video address emphasizing that our response to COVID-19 must respect the rights and dignity of older people. I applaud Guterres and the U.N. for providing a steady voice of advocacy as we continue to see ageist attitudes exposed toward older adults in this time of crisis. At every level of society, we must respond.