Had a blast attending my first Gerontological Society of America (GSA) Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego
San Diego Welcomes signs: International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans conference ending just as our GSA meeting was beginning seemed to represent my own career transition from employee benefits to gerontology! I hold a Certified Employee Benefits Specialist (CEBS) designation from International Foundation and the Wharton School
Buffet of rainbow-colored ribbons: Gerontology is an interdisciplinary field representing BS (Biological Sciences-orange), BSS (Behavioral & Social Sciences-green), HS (Health Sciences-blue) and SRPP (Social Research, Policy & Practice-red).
Ribbons for my name badge: New Member (gold), SRPP (red), ESPO (Emerging Scholar and Professional Organization-purple) and Award Winner (yellow).
President’s Welcome Reception: spotted Bobbie Yee, my aunt’s high school classmate who played matchmaker between my aunt and her cousin. Bobbie was bridesmaid and I was flower girl at their wedding several decades ago! Bobbie was also my introduction to the study of gerontology (“what are you studying?” I remember asking).
Exhibit Hall Opening & Poster Session: this eye-catching poster on alcohol use in Stockholm
ESPO Breakfast & Community Meeting: immediately followed New Member Meet & Greet so I enjoyed a second breakfast at Marriott :-) My attendance here was mandatory to receive Carol Schutz Award. Thank you GSA and my accommodating SFSU professors for excusing my absence from classes last week so I could attend this awesome meeting!
President’s Opening Plenary Session: GSA President Nancy Whitelaw told us that this year’s meeting was her 40th! Wow, she also mentioned there were 3,600 registered attendees, including 600 international attendees from 30 different countries!
GSA Executive Director James Appleby: great man who signed check for my award, thank you!
Keynote speaker James Fowler: UC San Diego Professor of Medical Genetics and Political Science and author of Connected: The Surprising Power of our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, discussed the social spread of obesity, smoking and happiness.
Autograph opportunities with gerontology authors
Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling: A Proposal to Modernize Women’s Benefits (SRPP) was chaired by Carroll Estes, author of Social Policy & Aging: A Critical Perspective (textbook used in my Aging & Social Policy class). Symposium was based on a report co-authored by Estes at http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/breaking-the-social-security-glass-ceiling-a-proposal-to-modernize-womens-benefits
How to Live on When Control Fails (SRPP): Harry (Rick) Moody, author of Aging: Concepts and Controversies (textbook used in my Aging in Multidimensional Context class) told us this was really a Humanities session. Instead of focusing on autonomy and control, he said the issue should be on how to provide dignity. I highly recommend subscribing to Moody's free e-newsletters at http://www.hrmoody.com/newsletters.html
SFSU professors take the stage
What Will It Take to Care for a World of Older Women? Office of Women’s Health (OWH) Senior Advisor Mary Worstell, OWH Deputy Assistant Secretary Nancy Lee and SFSU Gerontology Program Chair Darlene Yee-Melichar held listening session to obtain input on access to care, health literacy, public-private partnership and the budget.
Research Strategies to Create an Age-Friendly World One Community at a Time (SRPP): SFSU Gerontology Professor Anabel Pelham led efforts with students to have Los Altos and Los Altos Hills designated as age-friendly cities by the World Health Organization (WHO). She highlighted the need to involve all stakeholders and to emphasize that age-friendly is “good for all generations.”
Aging in Asia : SFSU Social Work Professor Rashmi Gupta started this interest group. Seoul , Korea San Francisco
Today & the future
Honoring Contributions of Elaine Brody: “Women in the Middle” Revisited (BSS): “Women in the Middle” refers to daughters, who are the main caregivers of elderly parents, caught in the middle to competing demands in their roles as mother, daughter and employee. 90-year old Brody mentioned testifying in Capitol Hill, before she retired 30 years ago, and asked why today’s gerontologists are no longer doing the same? (Read her insights on being a "very, very old" gerontologist at http://www.geron.org/uploads/documents/AnInsider'sPerspective.pdf)
ESPO/AGHE: Exploring Post-Graduation Opportunities (HS): listening to recent graduate Tara McMullen discuss working at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid inspired me to consider returning to the federal government to do policy work, which has such potential to make a huge impact on society. But this seems to depend on who's in power and the prevailing view of government's role. I previously worked at the U.S. Department of Labor under Secretary Robert Reich during the Clinton Administration’s first term (which enacted the Family Medical Leave Act, attempted health care reform and endured the federal government shutdown/Contract with America).
What Future for Social Security? (SRPP): Moody (again, this time playing talk show host) with Andy Achenbaum and Larry Polivka. Moody announced that he would be retiring from AARP and distributed copies of its publication, The Future of Social Security: 12 Proposals You Should Know About (http://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-05-2012/future-of-social-security-proposals.html).
These are just a few highlights from last week's GSA meeting. Hope to cover more in upcoming postings so stay tuned.
Elaine M. Brody, Expert on Elderly Who Grew Into the Role, Dies at 91
ReplyDeleteBy WILLIAM YARDLEY
JULY 17, 2014
Elaine M. Brody, a sociologist whose research on the elderly, beginning in the 1950s, revealed increasing stress on women trying to build careers while caring for children and aging parents — “women in the middle,” she called them — died July 9 . . .
In the 1980s, she argued that proposals to reduce government services for families and the elderly were based on what she called “myths” of an earlier era.
She told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1986: “Right now, the Reagan administration is sort of cheering the family on. You know, ‘Let’s go back to the good old days when families did more.’ Well, families did not do more in the good old days. They did less. There weren’t as many elderly people, and the needs were not as great.” . . .
“Not everybody experiences strain,” she told The Inquirer, referring to women and families who care for the elderly. “But study after study comes up with the same results. You find that some of them — maybe 15 to 18 percent — go through economic strain from the cost of it. Maybe 25 percent of them experience physical strain, from the arduous tasks involved in caring for the parent. These are important. But the main strains, the most pervasive and severe strains, are in the realm of emotional and mental well-being.” . . .
“I do not remember becoming old. All of a sudden, I was there.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/us/elaine-m-brody-expert-on-elderly-who-grew-into-the-role-dies-at-91.html
Elaine M. Brody, 91, a leader in gerontology
By Bonnie L. Cook, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: JULY 17, 2014
Elaine M. Brody, a pioneer in social work and gerontology whose career influenced policy and services for seniors and their families, died Wednesday, July 9, of respiratory failure at her home in San Mateo, Calif. . . .
Mrs. Brody's groundbreaking research on older adults and their caretakers contributed to the birth of gerontology. Her work continues to serve as a foundation for research in the field.
A familiar face in congressional hearing rooms and behind conference lecterns, she devoted her life to detailing the physical, financial, and psychological tolls taken on the elderly and their families because of greater longevity. Having studied those strains, she made some noise about them.
She wrote more than 200 academic articles and six books. Her 1986 work, Parent Care as a Normative Family Stress, has been cited many times by others. She published her final article in 2010. . .
In 1986, she won Ms. Magazine's Woman of the Year Award for documenting the challenges facing "women in the middle." She coined the term to mean those raising children and working, while also caring for their elderly parents. . .
Mrs. Brody was director of the department of human resources and associate director at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center (PGC) in Philadelphia. . . .When her children attained school age, she took a part-time job at the geriatric center, although she hesitated: She had trained to work with children, not the elderly.
"I tried it, I liked it, and I never looked back," she wrote. "It was the only place I ever worked, but because the PGC was constantly changing, it always felt new. Actually, I ended up working with parents and children, as I had planned, though the parents were old and the children middle-aged."
Born Elaine Marjorie Breslow in New York, she graduated from City College of New York and earned a master's degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh.
She and her husband, Stanley J. Brody, a leader in the fields of gerontology, rehabilitation, and public health, collaborated professionally. He died in 1997. The two had been married for 54 years. . .
http://articles.philly.com/2014-07-17/news/51607889_1_gerontology-social-work-associate-director