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Symposium

Social Research, Policy, and Practice

Advancing Geographies of Aging and the Life Course

Saturday, November 16, 2024
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PST
Location: Room 603
CE: 1.5

Aging and related health outcomes are not solely individual-level processes. Rather, built, social, and natural environments play a pivotal role in shaping health across the life course, especially among older adults. People also shape and modify surrounding environments throughout their lives in meaningful ways to maximize their well-being. While multiple longitudinal health datasets are available, many are analyzed without linking to spatially-explicit data. Overlooking the nexus between health and place, and not directly accounting for spatial and spatiotemporal processes that underlie the data, may hinder scientific discovery and advancement in understanding multi-scalar longitudinal processes that impact health and well-being. Geographies of aging and the life course critically integrate built, social, and natural environments into meaningful analyses and insights that can inform research, policy, and programs to promote healthy aging. This symposium features talks using innovative qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies to investigate multifaceted and overlapping contextual influences on health. The presenters critically consider mobility across the life course, multi-scalar social determinants of health, environmental impacts of structural racism and classism, and potential interactions among individuals and neighborhoods that influence vulnerability to health exposures. We aim to build capacity around spatial methods and place-based considerations in gerontology. The approaches featured in this symposium highlight accessible ways for scholars across a variety of disciplines to advance understanding of healthy aging through the integration of geospatial approaches.

Learning Objectives:

  • Articulate why the integration of neighborhood-based and broader built, social, and natural environmental measures across the life course into gerontological research can advance understanding of health and wellbeing in later life.
  • Summarize the strengths of geospatial data and methodologies to improve understanding of links between health outcomes and (1) activity spaces, (2) social, built, and natural environments, (3) residential mobility, and (4) behaviors and perspectives of at-risk aging populations.
  • Describe how qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies of neighborhood contexts and aging-related health outcomes can inform upstream community-level interventions to create more equitable environments with greater opportunities for lifelong physical, mental, cognitive, and social health.

Presentations:

  • 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PST
    Layering the Impacts of Structural Racism on Healthy Aging Trajectories in a Longitudinal Cohort

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Richard C. Sadler, PhD, MPH (he/him/they/them) – Michigan State University

  • 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PST
    Clustering of Multidimensional Neighborhood Characteristics in Shaping Healthy Aging

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Jiao Yu, PhD (she/her/hers) – Yale University

  • 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PST
    Health-Promoting Neighborhood Resources Associated With Reduced Neurodegeneration and Cerebrovascular Disease

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Lilah M. Besser, PhD (she/her/hers) – University of Miami

  • 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PST
    Toxic Homes and Communities? Exposure to Urban Fires and Increased Life Course Dementia Risk

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Jessica M. Finlay, PhD (she/her/hers) – University of Colorado Boulder

  • 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PST
    Leveraging Time Use Data to Explore Migrant Health, Socializing, and Technology Use

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Amber DeJohn, PhD (she/her/hers) – Florida State University