Physician Robert Butler coined the term “ageism” in 1969 in an interview with journalist Carl Bernstein (yes, that Carl Bernstein) about a Baltimore, Maryland neighborhood that was resisting the construction of a housing complex. Butler told Bernstein: “People talk about aging gracefully, which is what they want to do of course. So, naturally, they don’t want to look at people who may be palsied, can’t eat well . . . who may sit on the curb and clutter up the neighborhood with canes. Until our society builds [a] more balanced perspective about age groups, this lends to embittered withdrawal by old people.”

Butler’s definition of ageism - the “systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against older people because they are old” continues in wide use today, but has been updated in important ways. Notably, the World Health Organization (2018) reaffirmed that ageism is a phenomenon that is more comprehensive and widespread than discrimination based on sex or race.”

Those of us in the aging research and policy arena tend to rely on the WHO’s helpful categorization of ageism into three domains:

• How we think (stereotyping older people)

• How we feel (our attitudes - our biases and prejudices - about aging and older people)

• How we act (our discriminatory behavior)

Butler was an incredible advocate of older adults and he recognized very early on in the public discourse on age that ageist attitudes and actions were fundamentally dehumanizing -- the cruelty of which we often overlook in today’s world. Almost 60 years ago, Butler said “Ageism allows the younger generation to see older people as different from themselves; and they subtly cease to identify with their elders as human beings.”

The Bad News (but maybe motivating?)

Ageism makes us sick. Researchers have identified three ways that ageism operates in affecting our physical, mental, emotional, and social health: 1) age discrimination (when we are treated poorly); 2) negative age stereotypes (when people hold negative beliefs about us); and 3) negative self-perceptions of aging (negative beliefs about our own aging).

For example, studies show that older people are often denied access to health services and treatments, such as withholding life-sustaining treatments from older patients compared to younger patients after controlling for prognosis and care preferences. Several studies from countries around the world confirm that older people are excluded from health-related research, including trials in cardiology, internal medicine, psychiatry, oncology, neurology, and urology.

Further, studies show that those people reporting high levels of discrimination in healthcare encounters, develop new or worsened symptoms over the subsequent 4 years. Healthcare providers should have a moral and ethical imperative to curb their ageist behavior and attitudes because it is making your older patients sicker.

Shame and the Aging Woman

There is deep shame associated with being an older woman; we are considered ugly, sexless, evil, and we have little to no social value. In her compelling and illuminating (albeit troubling) book, Shame and The Aging Woman, J. Brooks Bouson writes that we older women are subject to “learned social shame as we internalize the culture’s shaming judgment of us as socially devalued and undesirable people.”

Quoting Laura Hurd Clarke in her book, Facing Age: Women Growing Older in Anti-Aging Culture, Bouson writes that those of us “‘who look old, and therefore ugly and unhealthy’ are harshly judged as people who have ‘morally, socially, and physically failed in their clash with the never-ending advancement of time.’”

Yikes. No wonder we women are under so much pressure to not look like we have “let ourselves go”; because otherwise we have failed entirely. And now that we are living longer, we women might be “looking old” - and therefore subject to social shame - for an entire third of our lives - say from 55 to 85.

Part of my background is in long-term care and I had occasion to be around a lot of older women nearing the end of their lives. More often than not, they had many photographs of their younger selves, likely so that other residents or staff or visitors might see beyond the old woman in them. Are we saying, “don’t see me as this old woman [and treat me as such], I am really this young and beautiful woman -- that is who I truly am [so treat me as such]”? Women are understandably very fearful of looking and being treated as old women. So many early childhood fairy tales cemented the view of old women as scary and evil in our young minds.

And an entire movie genre focused on evil old women developed in the 1960’s so that the Hollywood grand dames could have work: Hagsploitation (think What Ever Happened to Baby Jane) - aka psycho-biddy - still turns out horror movies.

Grey Hair

I will end - for now - with this quote from an article by Symonds and Holland, The same hairdo: The production of the stereotyped image of the older woman : “Grey hair on a woman . . . produce[s] one of the least desirable personas in Western society – an old woman.”

Hair – much like clothing and makeup and wrinkles – says a lot about age, race, social class, gender, and sexual orientation. Hair is visible to everyone and also a very personal preference. Grey hair – these authors state – has historically been linked to loss of sexual desirability --- even though for men, it is a sign of “sophistication and sexual maturity”.

As Hillary Clinton quipped in a 2001 address at Yale Law School “the most important thing I have to say to you today is that hair matters. [...] Pay attention to your hair, because everyone else will.”

Unfortunately, a quarter century later, we are still very much there.

In an upcoming post, I will talk about lessons from A Decade of Reframing Aging because we have made a lot of progress and there are things we can all do to improve the lives of all of us as we age.

References:

Achenbaum, W. A. (2015). A history of ageism since 1969. Generations Journal, 39(3), 10-16. Retrieved from https://libraries.maine.edu/auth/EZproxy/test/authej.asp?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/history-ageism-since-1969/docview/1750054672/se-2

Butler, R. N. (1969). Age-ism: Another form of bigotry. The Gerontologist, 9(4, Pt. 1), 243–246. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/9.4_Part_1.243

Chang, E. S., Kannoth, S., Levy, S., Wang, S. Y., Lee, J. E., & Levy, B. R. (2020). Global reach of ageism on older persons’ health: A systematic review. PloS one, 15(1), e0220857.

Bouson, J. B. (2016). Shame and the aging woman: Confronting and resisting ageism in contemporary women’s writings. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31711-3

Hurd Clarke, L. (2011). Facing age: Women growing older in anti-aging culture. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Symonds, A., & Holland, C. (2008). The same hairdo: The production of the stereotyped image of the older woman. In R. Ward & B. Bytheway (Eds.), Researching age and multiple discrimination (pp. 26–44). Centre for Policy on Ageing. http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/27390

Schneider, E. (2015, May 27). Hillary’s hair: She’s in on the joke. Politico.

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hillary-clinton-hair-118381

Patriarchy at home

When I was in my late 30’s and early 40’s, working full time and raising three children (with all that entails), I didn’t think much about my Social Security contributions. Even though my then-husband and I shared responsibilities for a family business, I agreed that he could take more of a paycheck because, well, back then there was no effective way for a young wife and mother to name, much less call out, such inequity. There would never be support from a husband, from an extended family, from a culture that fully embraced and embodied the patriarchy. It was so unthinkable that I didn’t think of it.

Fast forward 35 - 40 years as I plan for my later life. On the verge of full retirement age, I am calculating my retirement assets and I get angry at my younger self for not paying better attention; for not speaking up and demanding greater equity even though I know it would have been futile to push back against male-centric systems and attitudes before there was even any public discourse about the patriarchy.

Many of us older women, particularly older women living alone, are in a similar situation. As a result of long-standing oppression and discrimination, we arrive in later life at greater risk of aging alone, at greater risk of financial precarity; at greater risk of poor physical, mental, and social health; and at greater risk of being unhoused.

In 2022, my friends and colleagues at the University of Southern Maine published Economic Security of Older Women in Maine [Data Report] for the Maine Women’s Lobby, concluding that “[g]ender inequality is a deeply rooted societal issue that negatively impacts the economic security of women throughout the lifespan.”

Economic precarity

The report confirms that throughout our lives, we women are more likely to live in poverty, and by age 80, 12% of women live in poverty compared to 8% of men (2019 data). In large part this is because “the income disparity between men and women is compounded” over our lives.” Not only is the wage gap yawning for women of all races (but particularly Black, Native, and Hispanic women), but we hold a disproportionate share of the workforce of low-wage occupations such as care workers, teaching assistants, receptionists, and housekeeping staff. Even when men hold these same jobs, they make more than women. We arrive at retirement age with less money, fewer savings, and lower Social Security benefits. Compared to older men across all age groups, more older women have less than $10,000 per year in retirement income.

Care burdens

We know that women bear more caregiving responsibilities than men across their lifetimes. In Maine, 85% of paid and unpaid caregivers are women and almost 40% report caregiving puts them under financial strain. In 2024, The Commonwealth Fund reported that “around the world, up to 81 percent of all caregivers for older people are female.” Leaving jobs and careers to take on caregiving duties at home threatens financial security in late life which, in turn, risks our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.

Sexism as a health risk

A longitudinal study using English Longitudinal Study of Ageing data shows that gender discrimination is linked with significantly poorer mental wellbeing for middle‑aged and older women, including higher depressive symptoms, greater loneliness, and lower quality of life and life satisfaction over time.

These days, social media is encouraging women of all ages to identify sexism in its many forms, including our own internalized sexism that perpetuates patriarchal norms, and challenge sexist attitudes, language, and behavior. Women are supporting each other in de-centering men and we are calling for men to learn about sexism, be curious about women’s lived experience, and most importantly, change their behavior.

Because when women are well, everything just works better for all.

References:

Snow, K. I., Gattine, E., & MacKinnon, S.-E. (2022). Economic Security of Older Women in Maine [Data Report]. University of Southern Maine, Muskie School of Public Service, Cutler Institute.

Rainville, C., & Charlesworth, A. (2024, March 7). The unequal weight of caregiving: Women shoulder the responsibility in 10 countries. The Commonwealth Fund.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2024/unequal-weight-caregiving-women-shoulder-responsibility-10-countries

Mukhopadhyay, S., Anstey, K. J., & Demakakos, P. (2024). The relationship between gender discrimination and wellbeing in middle-aged and older women: Longitudinal evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. PLOS ONE, 19(3), e0299381.

When I was in cancer treatment twelve years ago, many friends expressed how “brave” they thought I was. This struck me as slightly off-putting - albeit well intentioned - since all I felt was raw existential dread; I was just doing all I could to live a bit longer. In the intervening years, I have learned a lot about existential dread and how we can reduce our intrusive death-related thoughts.

Ernest Becker

Death anxiety affects every one of us, although in varying degrees. It was not widely studied outside of philosophy until the 1970’s when Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist who studied alongside psychiatrists and philosophers, theorized that much of human behavior is driven by our fear of death. His book The Denial of Death won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974.

Becker’s view (wildly simplified) is that humans are fundamentally narcissistic (ok, that came from Freud) and that our narcissism is inextricably tied to our need for self-esteem and self-worth. Our need for self-worth in turn causes us to want to stand out, be recognized, be a hero. Becker saw that we lived in a cultural “hero-system” where our worthiness is based on acts that might outlive our death so our uniqueness will be remembered. He proposed that our adoption of a worldview – often in the context of religion, but not always – provides order, meaning, and some hope of legacy after death.

Becker said that “heroism is first and foremost a reflex of the terror of death”; we admire people who can face death bravely, who step into their fears to do something heroic. Heroism has shown up in myths, in the arts, in literature since forever, but until Becker and his proteges, it had not been studied in the social sciences. Becker died prematurely in 1974 at age 49, but he left a legacy of research that was picked up by a trio of scientists

Terror Management Theory

In the late 1970’s Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski - all social psychologists - were studying the emerging concept of self-esteem and how it manifests in human behavior. They found that our human need for self-esteem was often unrelated to our public image; we humans had a need for self-esteem that appeared to be separate from how other people viewed us. So they started looking around for other explanations. They came across Becker’s work in the early 1980’s and by the mid 80’s they proposed Terror Management as a theory and tested various hypotheses in their research. They published their first article on Terror Management Theory in 1989.

In this first paper, Greenberg, Solomon, and Pyszczynksi published the first of several experiments on Terror Management Theory, but in the narrative sections they explained that human terror of death was the primary motivator for our desire to “conceive of [ourselves] as a valuable participant in a meaningful world”. Doing so provides psychological stability in the face of our ultimate mortality. And because we face constant reminders of the fragility of our existence, we need constant bolstering of our relevance and meaning. In order to continually manage our terror, we must stay connected to aspects of our internalized worldview. They wrote, “people will respond positively to those who bolster their cultural anxiety-buffers and negatively to those who threaten their cultural anxiety-buffers.” In other words, being around people who share our world view reduces our death anxiety.

How Does it Affect Our Behavior?

Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynksi tested people’s moral values and their behavior when reminded of human mortality. For example, one early study compared the amount of a bond set for prostitute defendants when one municipal judge was primed with open ended questions about their feelings about their own death and the other was not. The prostitutes’ characteristics were the same but the bond amounts set by each judge differed significantly. The judge who was not primed about mortality placed the bond at $50, the other at $455 --- 9 times higher!!

What Greenberg, Solomon, and Pyszczynksi found was that “transgressions against our moral standards implicitly threaten the integrity of [our] ‘anxiety-buffer’ and engender negative reactions against the transgressor” (i.e., the prostitute).

The second series of experiments refined and expanded the first. They enlisted college students and administered a prostitution attitude scale to determine those most opposed to prostitution; they educated them about bonds and asked them to set bonds for a prostitute defendant. One group was exposed to reminders of their mortality and the other was not. The group that felt most negatively about prostitution AND was reminded of their mortality set bond amounts at $413 and those who were not reminded set the amount at $78.

How Does Death Anxiety Affect Our Behavior?

Because we are constantly reminded of our own mortality (just read the daily headlines or drive by a cemetery), we unconsciously look for ways to “buffer” our death anxiety. We distance ourselves from reminders of death (e.g., aging and old people) and we malign people and groups who are not aligned with our worldview (sound familiar?). We gravitate towards those who share our worldview and our cultural values (are you a progressive, a MAGA, a feminist? ). In a world with lots of labels and echo chambers, this is easier now than in the past.

Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynksi wrote a book on Terror Management Theory for the general public in 2015, The Worm at the Core, and I highly recommend it. They go into the details of the relationship of existential dread and religious practices; there is a great discussion of the concept of “soul”. More importantly, however, the final pages of the book offer a thoughtful summary of how easy it is to be in a black and white world where you clearly see your friends and your enemies. The authors note, however, that while living in that binary world might relieve us of intrusive death thoughts, it can also lead to intolerance, hatred, polarization, anger. The alternative, though, is unclear at the moment. We might have to live with some worldview ambiguity – and hence more death anxiety – but the trade off could be greater compassion, greater courage, more concern for future generations. That sounds okay to me.

Is it a Root Cause of Ageism?

Yes. And that is the topic of a future post. Lots to unpack there!

Thank you for reading!

References:

Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. The Free Press.

Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Lyon, D. (1989). Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of personality and social psychology, 57(4), 681.

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. A. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. Random House.

A colleague’s mother in law recently had a stroke that landed her in a rehabilitation setting (“rehab”). The rehab discharge planners wanted to discharge her home but impairments from her stroke made that option not safe. The closest family who could help with planning lived hours away and the discharge staff was not helpful in offering choices or information. The friend and her husband were just not sure what to do next.

This scenario - or some version of it - is familiar to many families; they have to muddle through relying on a patchwork of inadequate, confusing information online, well-meaning advice from friends, and sometimes self-serving guidance from healthcare providers. Families have so many questions and so many decisions to make: where to live, how to get help, what does Medicare pay for (if anything), how does one apply for Medicaid, what are the home health options, what about private duty nursing care, what is the family responsible for -- why don’t the hospital and rehab staff help more?

The short answer is, to be honest, the system of long-term services and supports (i.e., institutional care and community services serving old adults and people with disabilities) is so complex, even healthcare and social services staff do not have answers.

If you are a family member caregiver needing or wanting to plan for the day when more support is needed, here a few basics to consider:

1. If a loved one needs care, there are three categories of care: 1) care in your home (home health), 2) limited care in the community, such as adult day services, and 3) care in a residential setting such as assisted living or nursing home.

2. Medicare rarely pays for any of those. It typically only pays for nursing home care on a very time- limited basis if you have an acute need - a qualifying inpatient stay. This means that unless you have long-term care insurance (very few of us do) or your income is low enough to qualify for Medicaid in your state, care help comes out of our own pockets and is unaffordable for most middle income families. (BTW, this is why we need a system overhaul).

3. Rehabilitation settings are exclusively for rehabilitating from qualifying health events, such as injury or stroke. Private health insurance or Medicare will pay for designated periods of time and for certain services, depending on the extent of the need and the ability of the patient to actually be rehabilitated. Once a patient is no longer making measurable progress or able to make progress, coverage typically ends. Where a patient is discharged to depends on the need for care. Like my friend, the rehab discharge staff may want a patient out (because they won’t get reimbursed further) and pressure families to make fast decisions.

4. Medicaid programs and eligibility are different in every state because they are funded with a combination of state and federal dollars. If you are low income or think you might qualify for publicly funded healthcare, this federal link has a state-by-state guide. Some state Medicaid programs cover in-home care and all must cover nursing home level care, subject to financial and medical qualification. Some states, like Maine, have relatively high medical eligibility - meaning your needs have to be quite high to qualify for a residential setting.

5. Hiring in-home help privately is expensive and can be a logistical challenge if you need daily help or overnight help, mostly because there are rarely enough home health staff in a community to fully cover the needs. Maine, for instance, has had a severe shortage of staff, leaving qualifying people without care. If you can pay out of pocket, you can usually find someone, but the costs can be steep. Most states have listings of licensed health agencies, but not all of them provide in-home personal care staff. There are also community providers such as Visiting Angels that can be a lifesaver for families if the care needs are not too extensive.

6. If you think you may need to use residential care at some point in the future, it is best to directly contact local organizations and go and visit in person, if possible. Look each organization up online, read testimonials, make a list of questions in advance, and talk to people in your community who have placed family members there. This is a lot of work, but it is the best way to see for yourself. There are checklists online if you need some guidance; here is one from AARP.

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I have lots more to say about this topic and about hospice care as well. Look for additional posts in the future. In the meantime, ask questions in the comments to help me understand where the confusion is.

Yesterday the New York Times posted an article, Talk to Your Parents, urging adult children to talk to their aging parents about planning for, preventing, or addressing health, housing, care or other issues as we age into very late life.

As a young-ish boomer whose father lived to be 97 (and whose health declined only in the last three years of his life), and as a researcher studying aging and a former assisted living administrator, I have talked to many hundreds (probably thousands) of older people and their families about later life issues. Mostly these conversations happen without the participation of the older person so in that respect, thank you, NYT, for urging us to be inclusive in these conversations. However, shouldn’t the parent be driving these conversations? More importantly, shouldn’t we talk about how families can support each other at all ages?

At 66, I still provide financial, emotional, and social support for my adult children. I make car payments, I host holiday and birthday gatherings, I help process life disappointments and struggles. Not all the time and not a lot, but enough. I am happy to do this but am tiring of its unilateral nature. So maybe it’s time for us to have family conversations that feel more mutual, are more strengths-based, less stereotyped, and less ageist (towards both old, young, and middle aged).

People of all ages should plan for adverse life events. People of all ages should talk about how to prevent hardship, poor health, housing and transportation crises. Yes, we are living longer so we do need to talk to aging parents AND life is more complex for all of us; there is more income inequality, education is more expensive, housing is scarce and very expensive (certainly here in the northeast), we are more socially disconnected. Families - birth families or chosen families - can support each other but let’s see each other as likely to need help, support, and care at both unpredictable and (somewhat) predictable times, like during life transitions (e.g., divorce, diagnosis, traumatic event) or late life. Let’s create opportunities to talk and let’s normalize these conversations, offering patience, empathy, and recognition of appropriate boundaries.

As adults, we have the dignity and agency to make risky decisions. We often forget that there is always an upside to a risky choice - pleasure, pain avoidance, fear avoidance, excitement, responsibility, habit. Older adults have more experience calculating risk and deserve deference in how we weigh risk. Arguably, with all that experience we may be better equipped to assess risk for ourselves (though the neuroscientists may argue otherwise). The larger point, however, is that we all need to consider, and talk about, the fallout of our risky choices. Family conversations can help with this, which was the the ultimate point of the NYT article.

My point is that it applies to all of us, at all ages.

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References

Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. (2025, June 23). Unease in the housing market amid a worsening affordability crisis. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/unease-housing-market-amid-worsening-affordability-crisis

Cox, J. (2025, November 3). Income inequality is surging in the U.S., new Oxfam report shows. Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/josiecox/2025/11/03/income-inequality-is-surging-in-the-us-new-oxfam-report-shows/

Office of the Surgeon General. (2023). Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf

Colautti, L., Zambelli, M., Antonietti, A., Tagliabue, S., & Iannello, P. (2025). The relationships between cognitive functioning and decision making under value-based conditions in older adults: Findings based on a psychometric network analysis. Current Research in Behavioral Sciences, 100194.

We are living longer, having fewer children, more geographically distant from relatives, and for those of us in rural communities, we often have fewer transportation options as we age into later life, particularly during dark winter months. According to many older Mainers our research team spoke with last year, living alone in later life poses many challenges but also some distinct benefits.

We created a new website to generate awareness and public conversation about how policymakers and community service programs can better serve and support older adults living alone without reliable family support if needed. The Solo Aging Resource Center contains a curated list of books, videos, academic articles, and mainstream news articles on the topic of solo aging, along with descriptions of the most common concerns and strengths of solo agers.

Worry about future health

Most solo agers - whether newly solo or long term solos - are managing daily life through networks of neighbors and friends but they worry about falls, health declines, or a medical procedure or treatment that requires hands-on help. Some solos have neighbor support for some things -- snow removal, rides -- but they are unlikely to ask for help with personal care. Others worry about longer range housing, like having to move into assisted living or a nursing home and have no one to talk with about choices.

Naming a health care agent

Several solo agers did not have someone who they could designate as a healthcare agent and they worried about the burden it might place on friends and acquaintances. Currently, states do not allow for someone to designate an entity as a decisionmaker (like we do with a trustee when we name a bank, for instance, to make financial decisions). This leaves some older adults unprotected should they become unable to make their own healthcare decisions for whatever reason.

Help with daily life and emotional and social support

Solo agers who have lived alone for many years have had time to build a social network, often with other solos. But those who are newly alone -- recently widowed, divorced, or estranged from adult children - can find it difficult to establish a network of people who can step in when needed for the variety of tasks or social needs that arise in daily life. Older women, for instance, often decried the lack of help lifting heavy items.

All older adults expressed concern over chores that cannot always be done safely, such as changing a high light bulb. When partnered, there was a “spotter” for such tasks, but when living alone, other safety work-arounds have to be considered. Some have started wearing smart watches so they don’t have to remember to keep their phone with them when they go out to shovel, take out the trash, or do a risky chore.

Some solos have created informal “check-ins” with each other, texting or emailing regularly to make sure things are okay, especially during storms or extreme weather events. Connecting with younger neighbors has been helpful and reassuring for many solos.

Benefits of solo aging

Several solo agers spoke about how resourceful they felt relying on their creativity and innovation to manage life alone. Many older women who had raised families felt liberated from the demands and expectations that are piled on mothers over many decades. While a few said they missed big family and holiday gatherings, most felt comfortable either being alone or making alternative plans with friends or neighbors. Even though solos sometimes feel out of place at community events that attract mostly families or partnered people, they also felt liberated and free to do what they wanted, when they wanted to do it.

Community groups of solos

Solo agers like the idea of getting to know other solos and many wished there were community groups of similarly situated people, but there are very few local programs catering to solos. In Minnesota, Linda Camp’s The Backup Plan is one such program and here in Maine, some of the Lifelong Maine age-friendly communities are forming solo aging groups to address local needs and to be support to each other.

With increasing numbers of older adults living alone into very late life, we need more research, programs, and policy ideas to ensure that those of us aging alone can do so safely and connected to friends and community.

Read our full project report and comment here with suggestions for additions to the website or let us know what data or information you need or want as a solo ager.

Those of us in research generally rely on US Census data when we are looking for specific data points and within states or municipal locations, but it can be challenging to navigate if you don’t use it frequently.

There is, however, a new easy-to-navigate source of aging data for a few states - Maine (where I am), New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Mississippi, and Wyoming. The Healthy Aging Data Reports are a project out of the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Gerontology Institute and headed by Beth Dugan, PhD and supported by Point32Health Foundation.

The data reports for each of those states offer a snapshot summary (here is Maine’s)along with 18 categories of indicators (e.g., Population, Housing, Wellness) each of which has a dropdown list of subcategories (e.g., Percentage of Females Age 65+) that gives you a color-coded map and a listing by municipality and by ranking. As an example, in the town of Blue Hill, Maine, 72.5% of people age 65 and over are women as contrasted with the Town of Farmingdale in which only 34.39% of people age 65 and over are women.

Another example is the percentage of households (all ages) without access to the internet in Maine. While the state average is only 12.25% of households, the map shows large swaths of rural Maine with percentages as high as 34%. Given that we now need internet access for much of daily life - healthcare, news, banking, socialization - this leaves many people disconnected, particularly older rural Mainers.

The Healthy Aging Data Reports are updated every five years. Current reports - Maine is the most recently published - use data from a variety of sources including U.S. Census Data, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data (BRFSS), and Medicare data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The reports can be used in a variety of ways including, for instance, by municipalities to demonstrate the need for services; by age-friendly communities to support programs, funding requests, or to generate community conversations; by individual service providers to understand one’s client or patient base; by advocacy groups to support the need for services; and by nonprofit groups looking for the best way to support community members.

These maps can help identify local needs for specific groups. I’m thinking the older women in Blue Hill might be interested in supporting one another, especially since the Data Reports also show that almost 57% of people in Blue Hill live alone -- the second highest in the state! Blue Hill is beautiful, by the way, and has wonderful healthy aging services.

Thank you for being here!

I am launching Aging: The Fine Print because so much information about aging - research, regulations, laws, debate, access to services - is largely invisible to those of us who are aging (everyone!) or caring for people in late life. This lack of easy access to information often creates confusion, despair, delay, and poorly informed decisions -- through no fault of older adults or our families and caregivers.

Aging: The Fine Print will cover a variety of topics and provide up-to-date explanations and links to helpful resources and data to support informed choice, autonomy, and empowerment in late life.

Since aging intersects with every aspect of daily life - healthcare, housing, transportation, finances, inclusivity, employment, socialization, caregiving, inclusion - we all experience challenges in staying on top of research and public policy updates within those sectors.

We will cover aging demographics and data, ageism, older workers, aging alone, end-of-life, and lots more. If you have ever wondered, for instance, why there are so few housing options for older adults or why there aren’t more transportation services for older people living in rural locations or why it is so difficult to get home care services, or what are the benefits of solo aging, or what are age-friendly communities, or what services do the area agencies on aging offer -- then this is the place for you!

Subscribe and follow. I will have both free and paid subscriber posts.

In this initial post, let me articulate a few essentials:

Language - I will follow the principles laid out by the National Center to Reframe Aging and refer to older adults or older people, a more inclusive, age-positive term that avoids use of elderly, which has a negative association with decline, incompetence, and frailty

References - Wherever possible, I will provide references to studies or data sources and link to the study. Not all scientific papers are open-source and those that are not can often be obtained by your local or state library.

About me - I will turn 66 this year (2026) and I consider myself a solo ager though I do have adult children. I use she/her pronouns and identify as female. I am a progressive feminist and evaluate, assess, and apply policy and practice through that lens.

Context - Older people have been marginalized and invisible for hundreds of years. As a result, systems, structures, and institutions (e.g., our healthcare system) are largely unwelcoming and inaccessible for older adults. Lots of people are working hard to change this but there is little political appetite for major change. Let’s all work to change that so that improvements are in place for younger people as they age into mid and late life.

Thank you for being here!

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