As graduate students, we frequently discuss course content with our peers. These conversations often include an appreciation of how diversity, privilege, and cultural responsiveness are increasingly incorporated into teachings beyond having a token lecture or PowerPoint slide. However, as we head into a new academic year, we are also reflecting on what aspects of diversity and cultural responsiveness training are currently under-covered. This aligns with findings by Green et al. (2009), who reported that students tend to express dissatisfaction with the lack of breadth in diversity training.
One essential aspect of diversity that our peers report feeling under-informed about is age diversity. This may be partly because courses in adult development and aging are rarely offered in undergraduate, associate, master’s, and doctoral programs; when they are offered, they are often optional electives (Norcross et al., 2016). Therefore, in the uncommon event that courses are offered, students must go out of their way to gain this knowledge. Age diversity is also rarely incorporated into the content of core courses, leaving upcoming providers with little knowledge of how to care for an increasingly aging population.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the older adult population is growing and is projected to outnumber the child and adolescent populations by 2035 (Roberts et al., 2018; Vespa, 2018). People are having fewer children than in previous years, leaving the growing older adult population with fewer individuals available to care for them. This puts more pressure on the health care field to adequately address and tend to older adults’ needs. Compounding this problem is the dearth of geropsychologists and geropsychologists-in-training. An increasing number of older adults combined with a lack of growth in geropsychology makes it critical for students to be trained to provide competent care to a diverse and aging population.
Increased awareness of age diversity would also decrease the possibility of future health care providers maintaining conscious or unconscious ageist biases. Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic increased the prevalence of ageist biases (Swift & Chasteen, 2021), but ageism negatively impacts an older adult’s health (Chang et al., 2020). Therefore, we need all future health care providers to become more aware of how to treat our aging population while they are still in training to prevent potential harm to patients.
Fortunately, Division 20 and partnering institutions have facilitated a strong movement to create Age-Friendly Universities (AFU). AFUs address age diversity in education across many levels, but this piece focuses on one of the ten Age-Friendly Principles: “To increase the understanding of students of the longevity dividend and the increasing complexity and richness that aging brings to our society” (Dublin City University, n.d.). Although more established advocates are supporting this call to action under the umbrella of an AFU (Montepare & Brown, 2020), we are adding our voices as students who wish to be prepared to effectively help older adults and are seeing ways to improve training.
As graduate students with some experience working with the older adult population, we have a few ideas on what aspects of age diversity to incorporate into undergraduate and graduate program curricula. There are so many important components of age diversity and different ways this could be approached - we are not claiming that we are cognizant of them all. However, we would like to highlight a few areas that encompass our classmates’ questions regarding age diversity that could be incorporated into existing courses.
Conceptualization
- How symptom presentation and reporting style can be influenced by age diversity and its interactions with other identities.
- Learning about what environmental and social stressors may be more salient for older adults, and how to address those.
Treatment
- How treatment preferences may vary based on age and other intersecting identities.
- Identifying which evidence-based treatments may be particularly beneficial for older adults.
- How medications and polypharmacy may change diagnostic and treatment recommendations for older adults.
As we begin a new academic year, it is an ideal time to advance the AFU movement by incorporating additional education and training on age diversity, and its intersection with other identities within undergraduate and graduate health and psychology programs. Adding age diversity training into our education has become critical; this is evidenced from research on diversity training, reports from our peers, a lack of providers, and an increasingly aging and diverse population. The next generation of geropsychologists can be discovered and fostered by infusing age diversity into core courses and training. The future of the health sciences is in the hands of students, and it is imperative that we, as future health care providers, therapists, and geropsychologists, provide tailored, competent care to our older adult population.
References
Chang, E., Kannoth, S., Levy, S., Wang, S., Lee, J. E., & Levy, B. R. (2020). Global reach of ageism on older persons’ health: A systematic review. PLoS One, 15(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220857
Dublin City University (n.d.). Principles: Age-Friendly University. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.dcu.ie/agefriendly/principles-age-friendly-university
Green, D., Callands, T. A., Radcliffe, A. M., Luebbe, A. M., & Klonoff, E. A. (2009). Clinical psychology students' perceptions of diversity training: A study of exposure and satisfaction. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(10), 1056-1070. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20605
Montepare, J. M., & Brown, L. M. (2022). Age-Friendly Universities (AFU): Combating and inoculating against ageism in a pandemic and beyond. Journal of Social Issues, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12541
Norcross, J. C., Hailstorks, R., Aiken, L. S., Pfund, R. A., Stamm, K. E., & Christidis, P. (2016). Undergraduate study in psychology: Curriculum and assessment. The American Psychologist, 71(2), 89–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040095
Roberts, A. W., Ogunwole, S. U., Blakeslee, L., & Rabe, M. A. (2018, October). The population 65 years and older in the United States: 2016 American Community survey reports. United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/acs/ACS-38.pdf
Swift, H. J., & Chasteen, A. L. (2021). Ageism in the time of COVID-19. Group Processes &
Intergroup Relations, 24(2), 246-252. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220983452
Vespa, J. (2018, March 13). The graying of America: More older adults than kids by 2035. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/03/graying-america.html