better with age: health literacy

Kathy Greenlee, Administrator and Assistant Secretary for Aging, Administration for Community Living at U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, presented on Aging and Disability: The Alliance of the Future, discussing the rationale behind last year’s creation of the Administration for Community Living. She identified the following issues common to aging and disability: Older Americans Act and Developmental Disabilities Act involve advocacy for people’s self-determination; coordination of health care and community resources; functional limitations are not based on age; housing; “transportation, transportation, transportation”; direct care workers; and family caregivers who are the backbone of LTC.

In Long Life in 21^st Century, Stanford Center on Longevity Director Laura Carstensen discussed how public health improvements added 30 years to U.S. life expectancy in the 20^th century. Now in the 21^st century, six generations may be alive at the same time. However, in this “stunning cultural achievement,” there is a mismatch between the length of our lives and the culture that takes us through life; for example, medicine continues to focus on curing acute versus chronic diseases, and environments are built for the young and people with physical endurance. Carstensen opined that we need to change culture: understand how to change lifestyles so chronic diseases do not develop, and work toward a good death at the end of long, satisfying lives.

Home & Community Based Programs (H&CBP)

In Aging Your Way: Boomers Creating Communities for All (H&CBP), we learned how Senior Services in Seattle apply asset-based community development to leverage strengths in community due to government cuts (http://seniorservices.org/agingyourway/Home.aspx). They focus on eight themes (community connections/village, arts & entertainment, housing, local economy/timebanks, built environment, transportation, health, lifelong learning) based on principles (intergenerational, multicultural, interdependence, sustainable, tech-supported).

In Beyond the Health Care System: Promoting Health for Individuals and Communities (H&CBP), we learned how Atlanta Regional Commission’s Lifelong Communities Initiative provides a framework for “aging in place” while addressing determinants of health by promoting housing and transportation options, encouraging healthy lifestyles, and expanding information and access to services

(http://www.atlantaregional.com/aging-resources/lifelong-community-development).

In The Live Well Summit: Engaging Older Adults to Solve Pressing Health and Social Issues (H&CBP, Aging 101), San Diego’s Aging and Independence Services (http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/hhsa/programs/ais/) shared success stories of intergenerational programs like pairing foster youth with affordable senior housing, seniors mentoring youth in work/life skills, college students teaching English and health literacy to immigrant elders, etc. Since 2000, San Diego’s AIS has employed a full-time intergenerational coordinator and in 2012, Generations United named San Diego as one of the best intergenerational communities.

Portland-based Elders in Action’s Age Friendly Program Manager Joan Corella(http://eldersinaction.org/programs/agefriendly/) began Engaging a Community in Making Businesses Age Friendly (Business & Aging) workshop by asking why a business would want to be age-friendly. I responded that it’s like doing business with China: the tremendous potential to reach huge numbers of consumers! While statistics aren’t available, Corella said there was anecdotal evidence that businesses have benefited from increased sales after earning Age-Friendly Business certification, which includes directory listing and referrals. When certification began in 1993, there was no fee to participating businesses, but now the volunteer-run program charges a sliding scale of fees based on employee count.

SCAN presented Health Literacy in Action: Developing a Community-Based Health Promotion Program for Seniors (Physical Health & Aging) workshop with tips to improve oral and print communications by adopting a universal precautions approach. Some helpful sites to evaluate readability:

· http://www.editcentral.com/gwt1/EditCentral.html

· http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp

· http://centerforplainlanguage.org/resources/

· http://www.grouphealthresearch.org/capabilities/readability/readability_home.html

· http://healthresearchforaction.org/health-literacy-communications