How does ageism negatively affect the health of older people?
Becca Levy, an epidemiology professor at Yale School of Public Health, studied ageism at an individual level but hoped to look beyond individuals to see how ageism impacts seniors’ health at structural levels.
Overall, she found that ageism gradually declines health on 11 measures. Four of those are structural:
• Denial of access to health care
• Exclusion from clinical trials
• Demanding access to medical services because of their age
• Insufficient work opportunities
And seven of them are at the individual level:
• Reduced longevity
• Poor quality of life
• Compromised social connections
• Risky health behaviours
• Mental illness
• Cognitive impairment
• Physical diseases
Many of these issues were observed in an overwhelming majority of the studies. To specify, in 85% of the cases, ageism was connected to seniors being denied access to health care treatments. In 95% of the studies, data showed that ageism affected psychiatric conditions like depression, including a rise in depressive symptoms over time. “We found signs of ageism in every country we looked at, in every year and in every health domain,” says Levy. “The pervasiveness of it I found troubling.”
There was promising news in the findings too. When older people embraced a more positive perception of their age, they experienced less anxiety and suicidal thoughts instead of sinking into negative stereotypes.
The data also suggest that providing education for health care providers about age-based bias could ease some of the adverse health outcomes of ageism. Awareness of age discrimination has increased in recent years, and such attempts could even lead to savings in health costs.
