This qualitative study aimed to understand how educators view aging and emphasized how educators' past experiences with older adults and personal comfort level with aging influenced their beliefs and desire to teach about aging topics. Ageism harms older adults by creating adverse physical, mental, emotional, and socioeconomic health risks.…

This case study describes the rationale, development, and functioning of the Elders Learning Community, a nonprofit home and community service program that served older adults in Richmond, California. The program applied a blend of self-directed learning, learner-centered and significant learning approaches, and features of a member-driven…

The role of vision impairment (blindness and low vision) related to the risk of falling has been well documented. Reduced visual acuity, as well as poor contrast sensitivity, field restriction, and loss of depth perception are established contributors to falls (Lamoureux et al., 2010). People with vision impairments fall as much as two to three…

Background: Villages represent an emerging consumer-driven social support model that aims to enhance the social engagement, independence, and well-being of community-dwelling seniors through a combination of social activities, volunteer opportunities, service referral, and direct assistance. This study aimed to assess the perceived impact of…

Current public health and aging service agency personnel have little training in gerontology, and virtually no training in evidence-based health promotion and disease management programs for older adults. These programs are rapidly becoming the future of our community-based long-term care support system. The purpose of this project was to develop…

Past research has documented age differences in the size and composition of social networks that suggest that networks grow smaller with age and include an increasingly greater proportion of well-known social partners. According to socioemotional selectivity theory, such changes in social network composition serve an antecedent emotion regulatory…

This article contains an analysis of policies aimed at increasing the participation of adults in higher education (HE) in seven countries (NL, DK, SE, UK, BE Flanders, DE and the state of California in the USA). In order to maintain their economic competitiveness, many countries have developed policies to increase the participation of adults in…

Purpose: We describe the recruitment strategies and personnel and materials costs associated with two community-based research studies in a Mexican-origin population. We also highlight the role that academic-community partnerships played in the outreach and recruitment process for our studies. We reviewed study documents using case study…

Purpose: To describe the results of efforts to recruit Asian Americans into longitudinal research on cognitive decline in aging. Design and Methods: Recruitment strategies include clinics for assessment of cognitive impairment at the University of California, San Francisco campus and San Francisco's Chinatown, lectures to local health care…

Young and nondemented older adults were tested on a continuous recognition memory task requiring visual pattern separation. During the task, some objects were repeated across trials and some objects, referred to as lures, were presented that were similar to previously presented objects. The lures resulted in increased interference and an increased…

Investigated were why some low income, predominantly immigrant seniors (n = 91) choose to enroll in free training and start to use computers and the Internet while others choose not to enroll. The study was conducted in collaboration with a senior center in downtown Los Angeles that provides free Internet access and training to its seniors. The…

Purpose: This cross-sectional study takes a unique look at the association between patterns of walking and cognitive functioning by examining whether older adults with mild cognitive impairment differ in terms of the community settings where they walk and the frequency, intensity, or duration of walking. Design and Methods: The sample was based on…

Leisure activity participation has been found to have a positive impact on our health and well-being (e.g., Rowe & Kahn, 1998), and interest in lifelong learning as a leisure time activity is rising. This study compared self-reported measures of demographics, life satisfaction, cognitive status, and mood states in adult populations (over 50…

The University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) General Education "Clusters" are innovations in student-centered undergraduate education focused on complex phenomena that require an interdisciplinary perspective. UCLA gerontology and geriatric faculty recognized the opportunity to introduce freshmen to the field of aging through this new…

This article describes the involvement of undergraduate students in research at the California State University (CSU), Chico funded through an Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). CSU, Chico is a "teaching" university and has students with a variety of motivations and abilities. The…