20 results
Search Results
2. Exploring the Connections: Theory and Research.
- Author
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Longino Jr., Charles F.
- Subjects
GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,ACTIVITIES of daily living ,AGING ,GERIATRICS ,OLDER people - Abstract
Comments on several issues relevant to geriatrics published in the number 4, volume 60B issue of the "Journal of Gerontology." Key issues of interest; Analysis of pertinent topics and relevant issues; Implications on gerontology.
- Published
- 2005
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. Linking the Two Ends of Life: What Gerontology Can Learn From Childhood Studies.
- Author
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Settersten Jr., Richard A.
- Subjects
GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,ACTIVITIES of daily living ,AGING ,GERIATRICS ,OLDER people - Abstract
This paper extends provocative ideas from the emerging interdisciplinary field of childhood studies to the field of gerontology. These ideas constitute a framework for building new kinds of theories and research on old people and old age-gathered around rights and responsibilities of and for old people; focused on their agency and social participation; concerned with the social problems of old people, as well as how old people are constructed to be social problems; anchored in their perspectives and voices; dedicated to describing and explaining both commonness and difference in their experiences and statuses; devoted to understanding old people as beings and becomings; and attentive to the interdependence of generations within families and societies. These commitments will require gerontology to strengthen its treatment of sociocultural phenomena, prompt more genuinely interdisciplinary scholarship, and advocate a wider range of research methods and data. A "new social studies of old people and old age," nurtured around these ideas, will also raise the visibility of old people and old age in science, public policy, and social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2005
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. Definition of Successful Aging by Elderly Canadian Males: The Manitoba Follow-Up Study.
- Author
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Tate, Robert B., Lah, Leedine, and Cuddy, T. Edward
- Subjects
AGING ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,GERIATRICS ,OLDER men - Abstract
Purpose: Although the concept of successful aging is used widely in the field of gerontology, there is no agreed-on standard or common underlying definition for measuring success in aging. Our recent survey of an elderly male population asked respondents to define "successful aging." This paper describes the themes that evolved from those definitions, explores interrelationships between the themes, and examines the association between characteristics of respondents and the themes provided in their definition. Design and Methods: The Manitoba Follow-up Study has followed a cohort of 3,983 World War II Royal Canadian Air Force male aircrew recruits since July 1, 1948. At a mean age of 78 years in 1996, the survivors were surveyed and asked, "What is your definition of successful aging?" and "Would you say you have aged successfully?" A content analysis identified themes emerging from their definitions. Results: The most frequent of the 20 component themes from the definitions of successful aging as provided by 30% of the 1,771 respondents related to "health and disease"; "physical," "mental," and "social activity" were more likely to be found in a definition including "interest," "having goals," "family," or "diet," and they were less likely to be mentioned with themes of "independence" or "health." Many of the themes reflect an individual's attitudes toward life and the aging process. Current life satisfaction, self-rated health, and limitation in activities of daily living were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of reporting specific themes in definitions. Implications: As health care professionals adapt to the changing demographic composition of society, it should be of interest to understand what successful aging... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2003
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. Directions in Environmental Gerontology: A Multidisciplinary Field.
- Author
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Kendig, Hal
- Subjects
GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,GERIATRICS ,AGING ,ACCLIMATIZATION - Abstract
This article considers developments and directions for environmental gerontology drawing on the three papers in this Forum. The multidisciplinary field came of age during the 1960s with Powell Lawton's powerful environmental press paradigm and its applications to empirical research and building design. Recent theoretical developments in Europe and America have advanced and integrated concepts in psychology, geography, and related disciplines. Time dimensions and active use of space are essential for understanding aging individuals and microenvironments as well as changing populations and macroenvironments. Research on residential environments by health professions is informing community care that is enhancing the independence and well-being of older people. With its proven responsiveness to social and policy priorities, environmental gerontology is now providing strong conceptual and empirical bases for advancing healthy aging and age-friendly societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2003
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Farewell Editorial.
- Author
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Longino Jr., Charles F.
- Subjects
PERIODICAL editors ,PERIODICALS ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,GERIATRICS - Abstract
Reflects on the author's experiences as the editor of the "Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences." People who helped and supported him; Satisfaction he felt working with the publications staff; Developments in the journal under his leadership.
- Published
- 2005
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Subscription Page.
- Subjects
GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,AGING - Abstract
The article offers subscription information for the periodical is presented.
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. Ethical Issues Involving Research Conducted With Homebound Older Adults.
- Author
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Locher, Julie L., Bronstein, Janet, Robinson, 4'5 Caroline O., Williams, Charlotte, and Ritchie, Christine S.
- Subjects
RESEARCH ethics ,OLDER people ,MEDICAL misconceptions ,ROLE conflict ,GERONTOLOGY ,RESEARCH ,SOCIOLOGISTS ,SOCIAL sciences ,AGING - Abstract
Conducting research in the home setting with homebound older adults presents distinct ethical and practical challenges that require special consideration. This article describes the methodological issues that make studying homebound older adults especially vulnerable to therapeutic misconception and researcher role conflict and offers practical strategies for researchers to deal with these problems when studying this population. In writing this article, we draw on more than a decade of descriptive and intervention research focusing exclusively on the homebound older population in which the authors have collaborated. Therapeutic misconception and researcher role conflict may occur because of methodological issues related to the recruitment of participants, the "homebound" status of participants, and the home setting as the interview site. Particular care is required on the part of the researcher to address these ethical issues. This may be accomplished especially through clear communication during the informed consent process with participants and in scientific communication with colleagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2006
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. Identification of risk factors for 15-year mortality among community-dwelling older people using Cox regression and a genetic algorithm.
- Author
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Ahmad, Rabiah and Bath, Peter A.
- Subjects
GERONTOLOGY ,GENETIC algorithms ,COMBINATORIAL optimization ,MORTALITY ,SOCIAL sciences - Abstract
Background: Previous research has identified various risk factors for mortality in older people, but has considered a limited number of the variables available for analysis. The aim of this study was to use a genetic algorithm combined with Cox regression (CoRGA) to examine all the variables to identify risk factors for 15-year mortality.Methods: Data were obtained from a nationally representative sample of 1,042 community-dwelling people aged 65+. Data on cognitive impairment, physical health, physical activity, psychological well-being, social engagement, and physical capability resulted in 460 independent variables for analysis. Outcome was time from 1985 interview to death or censorship on February 29, 2000. CoRGA was used to selected combinations of 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, and 16 variables as potential risk factors for 15-year mortality.Results: CoRGA selected age in all six models; variables relating to handgrip strength were selected in five models; variables relating to reported chest pain were selected in four models; and pain in joints causing difficulty in carrying bags and self-rated activity compared to peers were both selected in three models. Other variables selected by CoRGA included time since last visited the dentist and optician, use of hypnotic drugs, and number of prescribed drugs being taken.Conclusions: CoRGA confirmed current risk factors for long-term mortality among older people and identified new risk factors. Age was confirmed as the most important predictor of mortality in older people. Handgrip strength is an important marker of frailty in predicting mortality. Self-rated activity is an important predictor of long-term mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2005
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. Racial Disparities in Self-Rated Health at Older Ages: What Difference Does the Neighborhood Make?
- Author
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Cagney, Kathleen A., Browning, Christopher R., and Ming Wen
- Subjects
HEALTH of older people ,RACE relations ,ETHNOLOGY ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,GERIATRICS ,OLDER people - Abstract
Objectives. Racial differences in self-rated health at older ages are well documented. African Americans consistently report poorer health, even when education, income, and other health status indicators are controlled. The extent to which neighborhood-level characteristics mediate this association remains largely unexplored. We ask whether neighborhood social and economic resources help to explain the self-reported health differential between African Americans and Whites. Methods. Using the 1990 Decennial Census, the 1994-1995 Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods-Community Survey, and selected years of the 1991-2000 Metropolitan Chicago Information Center- Metro Survey, we examine the impact of neighborhood structure and social organization on self-rated health for a sample of Chicago residents aged 55 and older (N = 636). We use multilevel modeling techniques to examine both individual and neighborhood-level covariates. Results. Findings indicate that affluence, a neighborhood structural resource, contributes positively to self-rated health and attenuates the association between race and self-rated health, When the level of affluence in a community is low, residential stability is negatively related to health. Collective efficacy, a measure of neighborhood social resources, is not associated with health for this older population. Discussion. Analyses incorporating individual and neighborhood-level contextual indicators may further our understanding of the complex association between sociodemographic factors and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2005
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
11. Feminist Gerontology and Old Man.
- Author
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Calasanti, Toni
- Subjects
GERONTOLOGY ,FEMINISTS ,SOCIAL sciences ,EQUALITY ,OLD age - Abstract
This article outlines feminist gerontology and shows how its focus on power relations lends insight into the lives of those people disadvantaged by them as well as the people privileged by social inequalities. To illustrate the latter, I discuss how feminist gerontology might examine old men, using the topic of health as an example. For instance, arrangements that maintain privilege in young adulthood and middle age can lead to poor health in old age. These practices of masculinity include physical risk in competition with other men, neglect of social networks and medical care, and avoidance of any self-report of emotional strain. However, with its focus on diversity, feminist gerontology also emphasizes that experiences of manhood, aging, and health vary by one's location in a network of inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
12. Household Disbandment in Later Life.
- Author
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Ekerdt, David J., Sergeant, Julie F., Dingel, Molly, and Bowen, Mary Elizabeth
- Subjects
OLDER people ,HOUSEHOLDS ,FAMILIES ,SOCIOLOGY ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences - Abstract
Objectives. This study described activities that older people undertake to reduce the volume of their possessions in the course of a residential move to smaller quarters, a process with practical, cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions. Methods. Qualitative interviews were conducted with members of 30 households who had moved in the prior year. The disbandment period, typically lasting about 2 months, was a particular focus of the interview. Results. The interviews suggested nine reasons why people had accumulated and kept things, which now became problematic for the impending move. The initial steps of disbandment entailed decisions about major furniture and meaningful gifts to family and friends, followed by evaluation of the remaining belongings for retention, sale, further gifts, donation, or discard. Things not divested by one means were reassigned to another strategy. People took pleasure in dispositions that saw their things used, cared for, and valued as they had done, thus fulfilling a responsibility to their belongings. Discussion. Disbandment is an acute episode of a more general, lifelong process of possession management. It is an encounter with things that are meaningful to the self, but as it unfolds, it also makes new meaning for things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
13. Cumulative Advantage/Disadvantage and the Life Course: Cross-Fertilizing Age and Social Science Theory.
- Author
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Dannefer, Dale
- Subjects
SOCIAL conditions of older people ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences - Abstract
Age and cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory have obvious logical, theoretical, and empirical connections, because both are inherently and irreducibly related to the passage of time. Over the past 15 years, these connections have resulted in the elaboration and application of the cumulative advantage-disadvantage perspective in social gerontology, especially in relation to issues of heterogeneity and inequality. However, its theoretical origins, connections, and implications are not widely understood. This article reviews the genesis of the cumulative advantage/disadvantage perspective in studies of science, its initial articulation with structural-functionalism, and its expanding importance for gerontology. It discusses its intellectual relevance for several other established theoretical paradigms in sociology, psychology, and economics. On the basis of issues deriving from these perspectives and from the accumulating body of work on cumulative advantage and disadvantage, I identify several promising directions for further research in gerontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2003
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
14. Conceptualizing Time and Behavior in Environmental Gerontology: A Pair of Old Issues Deserving New Thought.
- Author
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Golant, Stephen M.
- Subjects
HOUSING ,ARCHITECTS ,OCCUPATIONAL therapists ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,GERIATRICS ,AGING ,LIFESTYLES - Abstract
Architects, environmental designers, occupational therapists, and human service professionals are variously engaged in efforts to create settings for older persons that better fit their changing lifestyles and abilities. This theoretical article argues that to explain and predict more effectively the appropriateness of the settings occupied and used by their older occupants requires models and empirical inquiries that better conceptualize two areas of inquiry: (a) the temporal properties of environments and individuals and (b) the conceptualization of environmental behaviors or activities describing how individuals use, manipulate, or perform tasks in their settings. The types of constructs and relationships necessary for this inquiry are reviewed and their practical applications considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2003
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
15. Conducting Research on Home Environments: Lessons Learned and New Directions.
- Author
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Gitlin, Laura N.
- Subjects
HOUSING ,AGING ,GERIATRICS ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences - Abstract
The study of home environments is a research domain within the field of environmental gerontology that addresses issues related to aging in place. Despite the importance of aging at home, there are few recent studies in this area and most are descriptive and lack theoretical direction. This article examines the current state of research on home environments from which methodological challenges and new directions for future research are identified. Three broad research queries are posed: What should we measure and why in home environments? How do older people and their family members use the home environment in health, illness, and caregiving? What are the interrelationships between the home environment, psychological well-being, and daily functioning throughout the aging process? Suggestions for future research on home environments are discussed and the implications for advancing environmental gerontology highlighted. Specifically, the home environment offers a testing ground for generic environmental constructs and their measurement as well as a unique setting from which new understandings and constructs of person--environment fit can emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2003
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
16. A Generation of Change: A Profile of America's Older Generation (Book).
- Author
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Callahan, James J.
- Subjects
OLDER people ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences - Abstract
The article presents information on the book "A Generation of Change: A Profile of America's Older Generation," by Jacob S. Siegel. This book is one of a census monograph series on the population of the United States in the 1980s produced for the National Committee for Research on the 1980 Census. The committee is promoting a coordinated program of census analysis by interdisciplinary groups of scholars. This book arrived on my desk as I was preparing a paper on the future of home-based services for elderly people and was surrounded by special reports from the U.S. Census Bureau, the American Association of Retired Persons, and similar sources. The fact that this book was based on the 1980 census at first unnerved me, knowing how policy analysts, politicians, and students want the most up-to-date numbers. Much of the information in the book, however, has been updated to the mid-1980s by use of the current population reports, other government studies, and the work of specialists in gerontology.
- Published
- 1995
17. Imagining the Disciplinary Advancement of Gerontology: Whither the Tipping Point?
- Author
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Ferraro, Kenneth F.
- Subjects
GERONTOLOGY ,UNIVERSITIES & colleges ,MEDICAL schools ,ORGANIZATION ,SOCIAL sciences - Abstract
The article presents the author's views on whether gerontology will get transformed from an interdisciplinary to a disciplinary field of study or whether it is already a discipline. The author refers to the difficulties that are encountered while advancing gerontology within universities, colleges, and medical schools. He points out to the lackluster attitude of organizations which are unwilling to privilege gerontology at the cost of other fields of study.
- Published
- 2006
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
18. Disciplinary Perspectives on Later-Life Migration in the Core Journals of Social Gerontology.
- Author
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Walters, William H. and Wilder, Esther I.
- Subjects
EMIGRATION & immigration ,GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,GERIATRICS ,AGING - Abstract
Purpose: The authors examine the bibliographic structure of recent research on later-life migration, highlighting the contributions of particular journals and disciplines. Design and Methods: The authors identify the primary journals publishing research in this area, including a set of four core journals within the field of social gerontology. They evaluate the disciplinary affiliations of authors publishing in the core journals and the extent to which those journals cite relevant research published elsewhere. Results: Geographical and economic perspectives on later-life migration are underrepresented within the core journals of social gerontology. In particular, major articles published outside the core journals are seldom cited within those journals. Implications: Although the core journals of social gerontology account for over a third of the recent literature on later-life migration, they present only a partial (chiefly sociological) perspective on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2003
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
19. Promoting Qualitative Research.
- Author
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Schoenberg, Nancy E. and McAuley, William J.
- Subjects
PERIODICALS ,GERONTOLOGY ,REFERENCE sources ,ELDER care ,AUTHORS ,SOCIAL sciences ,GERIATRICS ,AGING - Abstract
The article provides information related to the publication "The Gerontologist." The author relates that the journal applied aging research findings of the highest standard. Authors are encouraged to submit their most innovative and significant research that has the potential to enhance the lives of older people and those who care for, and about them. The journal would also like to provide guidance for qualitative authors in the reviewers evaluating such contributions in the hopes of increasing publications of qualitative manuscripts.
- Published
- 2007
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
20. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences.
- Subjects
GERONTOLOGY ,SOCIAL sciences ,EDITORS - Abstract
A list of the editors and members of the editorial board, publications committee and Gerontological Society of America publications department of the "Journal of Gerontology" is presented which includes Emily M. Agree, Feinian Chen and Karen Glaser.
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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