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New York City is growing old.
Not only is it growing old, it’s growing old fast.
Faster than ever before.
Sheila Roher, a Senior Policy Associate at The New York Academy of Medicine, drove that point home at the recent Bronx Forum on Senior Health Care.
In a little over a hundred years, life expectancy has increased by 30 years.
“This is unprecedented in history,” said Roher in her keynote address, referring to the scope and speed life expectancy is increasing.
According to Roher, adults aged 60 and over now make up 12% of the population in New York City. Very soon this number is expected to jump to 20%, and adults aged 60 and over will outnumber young people.
Will the Bronx be prepared?
This was one of the central questions behind the forum that took place Wed., Jan. 25 at Hostos Community College.
The event brought together senior health service providers, researchers, and stakeholders from around the Bronx to share their thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
A panel of speakers talked about senior health care, each from their particular organizational or experiential angle. With a diversity of panelist backgrounds, the discussion ran the gamut from big picture issues to social policy and upstream interventions to individual seniors’ stories.
According to Roher, the fact that people are living longer means that the focus in public health has gone from acute diseases, those that threaten death, to chronic diseases, those that people live with.
Roher called chronic diseases “culturally created.”
In other words, a change in culture could change the diseases people endure.
Many of the panelists spoke of social isolation and marginalization being among the top challenges to seniors.
A number of initiatives are now seeking to address isolation.
Age-Friendly NYC is a program out of the Mayor’s Office that seeks to bring together groups that may not normally think about the aging population, and help them work to create an inclusive environment that encourages seniors to be active and engaged. This may mean changes to the built environment, like outdoor seating for seniors to rest, or longer time spans to cross the street at stop lights.
“Walk the streets if you really want to see what you can do to help in your neighborhood,” said Ilene Marcus, the Chief of Staff at the Met Council.
Danielle Palmisano, the Bronx District Director for the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, has been taking another approach to breaking isolation. Palmisano has worked with other staff to specifically target hard to reach seniors in places where have fewer clients. According to Palmisano, they’ve even waited by housing center mailboxes – for some seniors, the only time they leave their apartment may be to pick up their mail.
Panelists and audience members both talked about the need for service providers to know the seniors they serve.
Joseph Healy, the Senior Vice President of Comprehensive Care Management, told the story of one of their clients who was an asthmatic, but loved to dye her hair and get her nails done and had ended up in the ER because of an asthma attack brought on by the fumes. Clearly, Healy pointed out, it was worth paying to have the woman’s hair and nails done while wearing a gas mask. The woman’s health would benefit, and the cost of a trip to the ER would be saved.
The forum ended with questions from the audience, and time for participants to speak with organizations that had set up tables.
Monica Merlis, the Program Director of CAUSE-NY (of the Jewish Community Relations Council), and the forum coordinator, said that they have been holding the forums for the past 10 years.
“We hope that this serves as a great opportunity for collaboration and network building.”
The Bronx Forum is hosted by the Center for Bronx Non-Profits, which has emerged from a partnership between Hostos Community College and CAUSE-NY (the inter-group relations division of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York).
Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org
Reporters: to arrange interviews with NYAM medical and urban health experts, contact
Andrew J. Martin, Director of Communications
212-822-7285 / amartin@nyam.org
The 2012-2013 Duncan Clark Lecture - The Affordable Care Act: An Insider’s View
Featured Speaker: Sherry Glied, PhD, former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
November 19, 2012 - The NYAM Section on Health Care Delivery welcomes Sherry Glied, PhD, former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who will deliver the 2012-2013 Duncan Clark Lecture on "The Affordable Care Act: An Insider's View."
Learn more »
The New York Academy of Medicine with support from the New York State Heath Foundation released a new report, Federal Health Care Reform in New York State: A Population Health Perspective.
This report identifies opportunities that build on both the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) and New York’s ongoing efforts toward improving the health of its 19 million residents.
Read press release
Read report
