{"id":1469,"date":"2018-11-13T03:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T03:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/uwmedptn\/?page_id=1469"},"modified":"2018-11-13T03:13:33","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T03:13:33","slug":"ageism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/uwmedptn\/strategies-programs\/healthcare-equity\/hcetoolkit\/ageism\/","title":{"rendered":"Ageism"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Definition<\/strong> \u2013 A system of oppression based on the social construction of age superiority and inferiority, which is expressed in individual, institutional, as well as cultural forms and functions for the benefit of some at the expense of others.<\/p>\n

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Recommended Readings:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Books<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Videos<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Peer Reviewed Articles<\/a><\/h4>\n

Recommended Books<\/h1>\n

Enlightened Aging: Building Resilience for a Long, Active Life \u2013 UW Medicine Affiliation<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Authors<\/strong>: Eric B. Larson, MD \u2013 UW Medicine Clinical Professor<\/a><\/em> and Joan DeClaire
\nPublished:<\/strong>\u00a0 June 9, 2017
\nISBN<\/strong>: 1442274360
\nISBN13<\/strong>:\u00a09781442274365
\nPages<\/strong>: 234<\/p>\n

\u201cA leading expert in the science of healthy aging, Dr. Eric B. Larson offers practical advice for growing old with resilience and foresight. More than just canned advice,\u00a0Enlightened Aging<\/em>\u00a0proposes a path to resilience\u2014one that\u2019s proven to help many stave off disability until very old age. The steps on this path include pro-activity, acceptance, and building and maintaining good physical, mental, and social health<\/p>\n

Using inspiring stories from Dr. Larson\u2019s experiences with study participants, patients, friends, and relatives,\u00a0Enlightened Aging<\/em>\u00a0will help readers determine what their paths can look like given their own experiences and circumstances. It informs readers of the scientific evidence behind new perspectives on aging. It inspires readers with stories of people who are approaching aging with enlightened attitudes. It offers advice and resources for readers to build their own reserves for old age. It recommends ways for readers to work with their doctors to stay as healthy as possible for their age. And it offers ideas for building better communities for our aging population. While especially relevant to the baby boom generation, this work is really for people of all ages looking for encouragement and wise counsel in order to live a long, active life.\u201d \u2013 Rowman Littlefield<\/a><\/p>\n

Aging: An Apprenticeship<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Editor: <\/strong>Nan Narboe
\nPublished:\u00a0 <\/strong>April 4 2017
\nISBN: <\/strong>0692753990
\nISBN13: <\/strong>978-0692753996
\nPages<\/strong>: 298<\/p>\n

\u201cNan Narboe’s 56 thoughtfully selected essays offer an intimate and lyrical account of aging through the decades. Authors Donald Hall, David Shields, Kate Clinton, Paulina Porizkova, Ursula K. Le Guin and others draw from their own experiences, describing a specific decade’s losses and gains to form a complex and unflinching portrait of the years from nearing fifty to ninety and beyond.<\/p>\n

Drawing on seven decades worth of experiences, the selected essays offer a clear-eyed composition of narratives, each narrative as important as the one before it. In Paul Casey’s “Katie Couric Is No Friend of Mine,” a colonoscopy, not a red convertible, marks his initiation into mid-life. Germaine Koh, in “Thoughts on Aging,” is the oldest player in her roller derby league, confounded by her changing body. Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty” meditates on human self-consciousness–it is aging humans who find their bodies surprising. And in “Death,” Donald Hall rejects euphemisms: he’s not going to “pass away;” he’s going to die.\u201d \u2013 Red Notebook Press<\/a><\/p>\n

This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto against Ageism<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Author: <\/strong>Ashton Applewhite
\nPublished: <\/strong>March 15, 2016
\nISBN<\/strong>: 0996934707
\nISBN13<\/strong>:\u00a09780996934701
\nPages: <\/strong>288<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this lively, entertaining book, Applewhite mixes her personal experiences and opinions about growing old with an exploration of society\u2019s attitudes about age, debunking myths and exposing ageism. Author (Cutting Loose<\/em>) and blogger (Yo, Is This Ageist?<\/em>) Applewhite uses an enormous number of sources, including books, interviews with experts, and research studies, to examine aging in America. She uncovers quite a few problems\u2014\u201cI see ageism everywhere\u201d\u2014and tempers them with recommendations for changing the conversation and inciting social change, suggesting ways to \u201cpush back\u201d against, for example, antiaging rhetoric.<\/p>\n

She covers topics of all kinds, such as isolation (a fertile environment for disease), sex and intimacy, and the role of work and how companies can better accommodate older workers. She works hard to discuss and correct common misperceptions about aging. Her humor, high-energy writing, and emphasis on positive ways to view and experience age contribute to making this a valuable resource, an agent for social change, and an enjoyable read.\u00a0(BookLife) <\/em>\u2013 Publishers Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n

Being Mortal<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Author<\/strong>:\u00a0 Atul Gawande
\nPublished:<\/strong> October 7, 2014
\nISBN<\/strong>: 080509512
\nISBN13<\/strong>: 9780805095159
\nPages<\/strong>: 282<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recipient of numerous awards and widespread acclaim, Atul Gawande\u2019s Being Mortal has secured a position among the bestselling medical books of all time. In the years since it was first published, Being Mortal has become a cultural touchstone that has profoundly altered the way we think about end of life care. From those confronting their own mortality or that of a loved one to medical professionals guiding patients through their final days, readers of all backgrounds have connected with Gawande\u2019s insights on death and dignity. Being Mortal has been lauded as an invaluable tool by doctors, nurses, nursing home directors, hospice care workers, and funeral home directors. Academics and clergy have incorporated it into their lectures and sermons. Entire communities have read it together as part of One City Reads programs. It is a book that sparks conversation and leads to thoughtful reflection. It is, quite simply, a book for everyone.\u201d \u2013 Picador<\/a><\/p>\n

Life Gets Better: The Unexpected Pleasures of Growing Older<\/em><\/h3>\n

\"\"Author:<\/strong> Wendy Lustbader
\nPublished:<\/strong> August 18, 2011
\nISBN:<\/strong>1585428922
\nISBN13:<\/strong>\u00a09781585428922
\nPages:<\/strong> 256<\/span><\/p>\n

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The acclaimed author of\u00a0What\u2019s Worth Knowing<\/i>\u00a0reveals the truth about aging: Old age often offers a richer, better, and more self-assured life than youth.<\/b>“From our earliest lives, we are told that our youth will be the best time of our lives-that the energy and vitality of youth are the most important qualities a person can possess, and that everything that comes after will be a sad decline. But in reality, says Wendy Lustbader, youth is not the golden era it is often made out to be. For many, it is a time riddled with anxiety, angst, confusion, and the torture of uncertainty. Conversely, the media often feeds us a vision of growing older as a journey of defeat and diminishment. They are dead wrong. As Lustbader counters, “Life gets better as we get older, on all levels except the physical.”Life Gets Better<\/i>\u00a0is not a precious or whimsical tome on the quirky wisdom of the elderly. Lustbader-who has worked for several decades as a social worker specializing in aging issues-conducted firsthand research with aging and elderly people in all walks of life, and she found that they overwhelmingly spoke of the mental and emotional richness they have drawn from aging. Lustbader discovered that rather than experiencing a decline from youth, aging people were happier, more courageous, and more interested in being true to their inner selves than were young people.Life Gets Better<\/i>\u00a0examines through first-person stories, as well as Lustbader\u2019s own observations, how a lifetime of lessons learned can yield one of the most personally and emotionally fruitful periods of anyone\u2019s life. As an eighty-six-year-old who contributed her story to the book noted, “For me, being old is the reward for outlasting all the big and little problems that happen to all of us along life\u2019s pathway.”The collected stories in\u00a0Life Gets Better<\/i>\u00a0provide a hopeful corrective to the fear of aging aggressively instilled in us by the media. Don\u2019t dread the future: The best years of our lives just may be ahead.”\u00a0\u2013 Penguin Random House<\/a><\/section>\n
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Recommended Videos<\/h1>\n

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Ashton Applewhite: Let\u2019s end ageism<\/em><\/h3>\n

It’s not the passage of time that makes it so hard to get older. It’s ageism, a prejudice that pits us against our future selves — and each other. Ashton Applewhite urges us to dismantle the dread and mobilize against the last socially acceptable prejudice. \u2018Aging is not a problem to be fixed or a disease to be cured,\u2019 she says. \u2018It is a natural, powerful, lifelong process that unites us all.\u2019\u201d \u2013 TED2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

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