Researchers: Reuben Ng, Ting Yu Joanne Chow, Wenshu Yang
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: While studies have researched ageism in public policy, few investigated the impact of aging policy on ageism-typically, an unintended consequence. Ageism is linked to 7 billion allocated to fund outpatient health care costs for aged 65 years or older. More than 400,000 older adults received a PGP card and home visits by trained volunteers who co-devised a personalized utilization plan. We leveraged a 10-billion-word data set with more than 30 million newspaper and magazine articles to dynamically track Societal Age Stereotype scores over 8 years from pre- to postpolicy implementation. RESULTS: Societal Age Stereotypes followed a quadratic trend: Prior to the Aging Policy Agenda Setting from 2010 to 2014, stereotypes were trending positive; after 2014, it trended downward to become more negative. Medicalization of Aging mediated the relationship between Aging Policy Agenda Setting and Societal Age Stereotypes. Furthermore, Old-age Support Ratio moderated the mediational model, suggesting that the impact of policy on medicalization is stronger when a society is more aged. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: We provided a framework for policymakers to ameliorate the unintended consequences of aging policies on societal ageism-if unaddressed, it will exert an insidious toll on older adults, even if initial policies are well-intentioned.
References
- Societal Age Stereotypes in the U.S. and U.K. from a Media Database of 1.1 Billion Words.
- Reframing aging during COVID-19: Familial role-based framing of older adults linked to decreased ageism.
Topic: Ageism in healthcare