Issue Category: Age-Friendly Public Health

Indicators of Healthy Aging: A Guide to Explore Healthy Aging Data through Community Health Improvement

Collecting, analyzing, and translating relevant and robust data on older adults.

For over a century, public health interventions – from vaccines to food safety and vector control – have contributed to Americans’ longevity, and state and local health departments play a key role in supporting their communities by promoting healthy living. Healthy aging programs uniquely dovetail with local health department Community Health Improvement Plans (CHIPs).  Both allow health departments and partnering organizations to understand and address healthy aging priorities through data.

An analysis conducted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), found that most CHIPs include priorities that, while not specifically addressing older adults (e.g., 65 years of age and older), could be adapted for healthy aging programs. These priorities include chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer, as well as substance use, depression, and other mental health conditions.

To develop and strengthen age-friendly public health systems, a more comprehensive set of healthy aging indicators is needed to help health departments and community partners at the local, state, tribal, and territorial levels measure and identify population-level health disparities and inequities. Additionally, Community Health Improvement (CHI) partners need a robust, unified source of secondary data that aligns with healthy aging indicators to inform strategic and action planning.

This guide, developed by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and with funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation, is designed to augment NACCHO’s Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) framework. MAPP is the most widely used CHI framework among governmental public health departments and, increasingly, community-based organizations, nonprofit hospital systems, and community health centers that lead or engage in CHI processes. This also serves as a resource for health departments seeking to attain Age-Friendly Public Health Systems (AFPHS) recognition.

Download your free copy of the Guide.

Public Health’s Role in Supporting Family Caregivers

According to a September 2022 report by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and  the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, Chronic Disease Family Caregiving Through a Public Health Lens, there are 53 million family caregivers in America-that’s nearly one i five families. Furthermore, the number of caregivers will continue to rise as people aged 65 or older are expected to almost double by the year 2060. At that time, the nation will have reached a milestone of one in four people responsible for providing care for a family member with a chronic disease, serious illness, or a disability.

The report, which was supported by a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation, found that caregivers are taking on caregiving responsibilities for adults with increasingly complex needs due to raising rates of chronic disease, Alzheimer’s Disease and other types of memory and dementia issues.

Caregivers in Need

Providing care for an ill family member is a demanding task often made more complicated by geographically dispersed families and the need for two wage-earners.

Source: Caregiving for Family and Friends – A Public Health Issue

According to a NAC and National Association of Chronic Disease Directors Roundtable, in 2020,23 percent of caregivers reported worsening health due to caregiving. Of those caregivers, 60 percent reported difficulty when addressing their own health needs. TFAH has recommended establishing a comprehensive paid family and medical leave policy that ensures paid time off to address family health or caregiving needs for all employees.

Equity in Caregiving

Of the nation’s 53 million family caregivers, an estimated 61 percent are Non-Hispanic white, 17 percent are Hispanic, 14 percent are African American, and 5 percent are Asian American and/or Pacific Islander. As the need for care grows, the need for caregiver systems that are integrated into the community, and culturally and language appropriate is critical. Innovations in technology, such as telemedicine and translation tools, can assist in allowing both long-distance and non-English speaking caregivers have the support they need from public health programs and their communities. Culturally designed approaches and relationship building within communities will enable greater understanding of, support for, and interaction with the nation’s caregivers.

How Can the Public Health System Support Caregivers?

Support for the nation’s caregivers is a public health issue especially in light of demographic changes that will make the need for family caregiving even greater in the future. The public health system has  a critical role to play in supporting family caregivers and their ability to provide care through care coordination and assistance integrating home care with more formal healthcare services. Public health systems should work to create family caregiving support infrastructure and should team with other entities that can have a role in supporting caregivers including healthcare systems and providers, insurers, community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, and employers.

Conclusion

Caregivers are a vital part of the nation’s healthcare system and need the support of the public health sector. Policies should support the nation’s existing and growing number of caregivers to allow them to provide care while protecting their own health, well-being, and financial security.

Additional TFAH Age-Friendly Public Health Systems initiative Resources on Family Caregiving

Michigan Conference Seeks to Advance an Interconnected, Age-friendly Public Health System

Michigan is a leader in the movement to create a more age-friendly public health system by creating partnerships throughout the health and public health sectors within the state. In October 2022, over 120 aging and health leaders and innovators gathered at Michigan State University for the state’s first-ever Strategically Partnering for Age-Friendly Health in Michigan Conference to collaborate on a shared vision to advance age-friendly policies and practices across the state.

The conference, jointly hosted by The Michigan Health Endowment Fund, Michigan Public Health Institute, and Trust for America’s Health, emphasized the need for age-friendly policies to benefit everyone, not just older adults, due to their focus on the social conditions that support optimal health.

One of the key themes of the conference was the importance of integrating age-friendly principles into the ecosystem of society and information sharing across care delivery, between hospitals and home care providers, for example. Dr. Aaron Guest, a national leader in aging and public health, spoke on the connections between social determinants of health and healthy aging, and the importance of creating an age-friendly environment that addresses the social and economic factors that promote good health and well-being.

Structural racism and health disparities were also discussed as significant obstacles to ensuring equitable access to care and culturally responsive, age-friendly care. Black older adults in Michigan experience lower rates of health insurance coverage and greater rates of chronic health conditions compared to their white counterparts. Furthermore, the Detroit Area Agency on Aging found that the death rate of Detroit adults in their 50s is 122 percent higher than the rest of the state.

Overall, the conference sought to chart the course for an age-friendly future within the state, acknowledging the challenges ahead but also the progress made, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic’s disproportionate impact on communities of color and older adults illustrates the importance of addressing the upstream social determinants of health and integrating age-friendly policies into public health systems.

TFAH is proudly committed to a continued partnership with the Michigan Public Health Institute and will continue to help support Michigan’s Age Friendly Public Health System initiative in the future.

This article is based on the Age-Friendly Conference Envisions as Interconnected Michigan blog, published by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund.

Read more on TFAH’s Age Friendly Public Health Systems and Age Friendly Public Health Systems Initiative Page.

Subscribe to TFAH’s Age Friendly Public Health Newsletter.

Trust for America’s Health Celebrates Older Americans Month

The month of May provides America with the opportunity to celebrate our families, neighbors, colleagues, and friends as we all age.  It is an opportunity to recognize and share the collective wisdom and rich history afforded by older age.  It is also a time to reflect on how we, as a nation, view ourselves as we age, and to reflect on how well we are working to create supportive environments for equitable health and well-being across the lifespan.

Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), as a non-profit public health policy, research, and advocacy organization committed to ensuring healthy environments for all individuals and communities, prioritizes the roles of the public health sector in creating such supportive environments.  We have seen the significant toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on not just the health, but also the social and economic well-being of older adults.  We commend the public health sector for actively addressing these challenges and working across sectors to collaboratively and equitably support our nation’s older adults, their families, and caregivers.

Older Americans Month offers us the opportunity to examine the public health practices that can be expanded to include older adults beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.  We must continue to elevate healthy aging as a core public health function, from collecting robust data on older adult health, to embedding multi-sector partnerships, to prioritizing and advancing health equity, to exploring how the social determinants of health can be framed with an aging lens.  And public health departments can continue to collaborate with America’s aging services network to support and build opportunities and options for more older adults to age in the communities and spaces of their choice.

TFAH will continue to explore new opportunities with state and local health departments to embed healthy aging within public health practice, to develop resources to support this engagement, and to advocate for policy changes to ensure appropriate authority and funding for these efforts.  For more information on TFAH’s Age-Friendly Public Health Systems initiative, please visit www.afphs.org.

TFAH Applauds Introduction of the Protecting the Health of America’s Older Adults Act

(Washington, DC – December 16) – Trust for America’s Health, a non-partisan, nonprofit public health policy, research and advocacy organization, applauds the introduction of the bipartisan Protecting the Health of America’s Older Adults Act by Representatives Lois Frankel (CA-44), Gus Bilirakis (FL-12) and Debbie Dingell (MI-12). The bill would enable state and local public health departments to better meet the needs of older adults via innovative new strategies.

If enacted, the bill would create a Healthy Aging grant program at CDC to provide grants to health departments to help states and local communities coordinate multi-sector efforts to promote the health of older adults and develop aging expertise. The grant program would allow state and local health departments to apply an aging lens to all of their work, including efforts to reduce healthcare costs and improve health equity. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of public health’s role in the aging sector, and this new program will help ensure that health departments have the resources they need to make a meaningful impact for seniors.

The President and CEO of Trust for America’s Health, Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, congratulates Representatives Frankel, Bilirakis, and Dingell on the introduction of the bill, stating:

“The last year underscored how important it is for public health to be at the table when it comes to promoting the health of older adults. Health departments have been critical to addressing the needs of older adults during the pandemic; their active engagement in many other issues faced by the aging population, including transportation and housing access, chronic disease, and mental health, will promote better aging outcomes and benefit our entire society. This new grant program would be a step in the right direction to ensure that state and local health departments have the resources to do exactly that.”

In addition to TFAH, original endorsing organizations include:

  • Alliance for Aging Research
  • American Association on Health and Disability
  • American Lung Association
  • American Muslim Health Professionals
  • American Public Health Association
  • American Psychological Association
  • Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health
  • Association of State Public Health Nutritionists
  • Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
  • Authority Health
  • Catholic Health Association of the United States
  • Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly (CARIE)
  • Ceres Community Project
  • Christian Council of Delmarva
  • Coalition of National Health Education Organizations
  • Common Threads
  • Elder Options
  • Equality California
  • FLIPANY
  • Florida Public Health Association
  • The Gerontological Society of America
  • Hartsfield Health Systems Consulting, LLC
  • Lakeshore Foundation
  • Long Beach Gray Panthers
  • Maine Council on Aging
  • Maine Public Health Association
  • Mel Leaman Free Clinic
  • MindWise Innovations
  • National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs
  • National Network of Public Health Institutes
  • National Recreation and Park Association
  • National Senior Games Association
  • Peggy Lillis Foundation
  • The Praxis Project
  • Prevent Blindness
  • Silver State Equality-Nevada
  • Society for Public Health Education
  • Society for Women’s Health Research
  • Tennessee Justice Center
  • Urban Health Partnerships
  • Valley AIDS Council
  • WARM, Inc.
  • Washington State Public Health Association
  • We All Rise

TFAH has prepared a fact sheet on the legislation.

 

Age-Friendly Public Health

Older adults are the fastest growing demographic of the U.S. population. This year, 10,000 Americans will reach age 65 on a daily basis.

Public Health departments and systems can make important contributions to the health and productivity of older Americans. Trust for America’s Health and The John A. Hartford Foundation are partnering with state and local health departments to help them implement a public health framework within their department activities to support the health and well-being of their older adult residents. Learn more about the initiative at Age-Friendly Public Health Systems – Trust for America’s Health.

Healthy aging initiatives should involve multiple sectors of a community and should implement evidence-based programs to reduce social isolation and risk factors for illness and injury among the older adult population.