1School of Social Work, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. 2Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 3Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State University, Fort Collins. 4Social and Behavioral Sciences Department, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut. 5Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh. 6Department of Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany. 7German Centre of Gerontology, Berlin, Germany. 8Network of Aging Research, Heidelberg University, Germany.

Aging in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Avoiding Ageism and Fostering Intergenerational Solidarity.

The World Health Organization (WHO) approach to healthy ageing.

Background. Research has found a strong link between ageism, in the form of negative stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination toward older people, and risks to their physical and mental health. L...

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305123

Interventions to Reduce Ageism Against Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

SARS-CoV-2 Infection and COVID-19 During Pregnancy: A Multidisciplinary Review.

At the time of this writing, 203 countries and territories have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak (Worldometer, 2020a). Older adults, in particular, are negatively impacted by this pandemic (Lipsitch et al., 2020). Current estimates suggest that the COVID-19 mortality rate stands at 15% for those over the age of 80, but 0 for those under the age of 10 (Worldometer, 2020b). Hence, there is no doubt that age poses a major risk for COVID-19 mortality. At the same time, there are incidental reports of centenarians, who recovered from COVID-19, and of younger adults, who have not (Coffey and Oransky, 2020; Lanese and Writer, 2020). Moreover, the prevalence of younger people infected by the virus is higher than that of older adults (Surveillances, 2020). Hence, age alone is likely an insufficient criterion for predicting the direct medical impact of the outbreak. In this commentary, I argue that the portrayal of all older adults as a homogenous, vulnerable group, rather than the use of a more refined discourse, which stresses the heterogeneity inherited in old age and the potential impact of the pandemic on society at large, has resulted in increased ageism and intergenerational tension, worldwide. Ageism is defined as stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination toward people because of their age (Ayalon and Tesch-Römer, 2018; Officer and de la FuenteNúñez, 2018). Although ageism can be both positive and negative (Ayalon and Tesch-Römer, 2018), in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have seen an out surge of negative manifestations of ageism. Intergenerational tension, characterized as conflict between people of different generations, also has been intensified as a result of the outbreak and has fuelled the response to the pandemic. It is argued here that the psychosocial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbate and oftentimes supersede its direct medical impact, which to date, has received a substantial amount of research attention (World Health Organization, 2020). From the get-go, the COVID-19 outbreak has been portrayed as “the problem of older adults” and a clear age division, separating young from old has been promoted (Zhou et al., 2020). In China, where the COVID-19 outbreak had started, the tension between the generations has been manifested in anger toward older adults because of the refusal of some older adults to wear face masks (Eckersley, 2020). This is consistent with the prediction that at times of scarce resources, symbolic threats, manifested in disputes over values and beliefs, intensify (Stephan and Stephan, 2017). Overtime, the public focus has shifted to financial donations made by poor older adults, who sacrificed their living in an effort to support the fight against the pandemic. Both in the case of face masks and in the case of financial donations, older adults were portrayed as a separate, homogenous group in society, defined by its chronological age. In the former example, older adults were seen as a threat to society, as they “selfishly” refused to conform to current societal practices. In the latter example, on the other hand, older adults were presented as a selfless, yet vulnerable group, which is willing to risk its own being in order to help society at large. In other countries, the division between young and old resulted in somewhat different manifestations, depending on the sociocultural background of the country and its ability to address the pandemic. In Israel, the Ministry of Defense had issued a statement that “the single most important insight : : : is to separate old people from young people. The single most lethal combination cocktail is when grandma meets her grandchild and hugs him” (Gross and TOI Staff, 2020). This statement explicitly argues for an age division between the generations and portrays intergenerational contact as THE problem. Following the same logic, in the UK, the first response to the outbreak was “business as usual.” In fact, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had suggested that older adults over the age of 70 should self-isolate for a period of 4 months, while all other age groups continue as usual (Sparrow, 2020). A similar approach has been advocated in other countries, which had stressed the importance of socially isolating older adults, rather than the entire population (Armitage and Nellums, 2020). This approach was attributed to the fact that older adults already have their pensions and thus are not likely to be impacted financially by social isolation. International Psychogeriatrics: page 1 of 4© International Psychogeriatric Association 2020. This is anOpen Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi:10.1017/S1041610220000575

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E14BB8E757B3861FFB198E8C0CDB38DA/S1041610220000575a.pdf/div-class-title-there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun-ageism-and-intergenerational-tension-in-the-age-of-the-covid-19-outbreak-div.pdf

There is nothing new under the sun: ageism and intergenerational tension in the age of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Ageism: A social determinant of health that has come of age

Systematic efforts have been carried out to study ageism against older populations. Less is known about ageism against younger populations, including how it is defined, how it manifests, its effects, and how it can be addressed. A scoping review was conducted aimed at identifying available evidence on these topics. A comprehensive search strategy was used across thirteen databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL. Records were screened by two independent reviewers. Data extraction was done by one rater and independently reviewed by a second rater. Of the 9270 records identified, 263 were eligible for inclusion. Most of the evidence focused on the manifestation of ageism (86%), followed by a focus on the determinants of ageism (17%), available interventions to address ageism (9%), and the effects of ageism (5%). This study points to the inconsistent terminology used to describe ageism against younger populations and the relatively limited theoretical rationale that guides existing studies. It also highlights key research gaps and points to the strengths of existing research.

Vânia de la Fuente-Núñez

Papers

Ageism: A social determinant of health that has come of age

Scoping Review on Ageism against Younger Populations