Ageism: the longevity thief | Nancy Pachana | TEDxUQ

[Music] I have lived for 58 years and what do you know about me do you know anything about my capabilities anything about my health status even what you can see the gray streaks in my hair this is actually a deliberate and I would say an Artful collaboration with my fabulous hairdresser but did you make a different assumption these sorts of assumptions based on age gend gender country of origin sexual orientation form a group of isms that are both dangerous and damaging I'm a psychologist and I study aging and I'm going to talk to you today

about the ism that I know best agism agism is defined as assumption judgments stereotypes Prejudice discrimination based solely on chronological age and I'm very sorry to say that agism is Rife in the world agism is in the workplace it's at home it's in schools and in fact the World Health Organization has shown that one one in two people globally hold moderately to severely agist attitudes these attitudes Rob people of opportunity you too young for this job you're too old for this job you're too young to do this activity you're too old to do this activity

so for people across the lifespan they're not able able to participate fully in life and although I said that agism affects people across the lifespan its effects are most Stark for people in the second half of life and why is this well in the first half of Life agist attitudes are all around us you know the media people around us and we think this do doesn't really apply to me I don't have to be worried about this but then at some point someone does apply those stereotypes to you and you think wait a minute that's

not who I am that's not me but the stereotypes keep being applied the Lost opportunities pile up and it's some stage you might say maybe these do apply to me maybe this is who I am Becca Levy at Yale University has shown that these sorts of internalized agis attitudes Rob us of s and 1 half years of life that's right seven s and a half years of life if I had a pill that would give you 7 and A2 years of life if I could show you something in the environment that you could avoid that

you could gain those years I would be very popular people would want to know about it but when I tell you instead that it's how we are with each other what we say and do to each other and to ourselves this is vexing it's much easier to take a pill than it is to change Behavior but we do have to change these behaviors because as everyone knows people all over are living longer but that's also an incorrect assumption there are groups in the world for example indigenous people who are not sharing the dividend of a

long life to the same extent as non- indigenous people so we must take account of that but in taking account of that you still might say well we're adding all these years of life it's still all added at the end where there's disease and disability why would I be interested in that but that's also an incorrect assumption because of Public Health messages medical advances have kept the proportion of life that is mainly in disability relatively constant and so then the added years of longevity are in the middle of life in the heart of life so

that then if you rob yourself of seven and a half years of life that also comes from the heart of life agism is a major concern the United Nations has named this decade that we're in the decade of healthy aging and a major goal of this decade is combating agism the World Health Organization in support of this has come up with a framework of major sectors of society that can work together to formulate policies and practices that frame the longevity dividend as just that a dividend positive outcomes for the individual and Society not simply framed

as cost and burden I'm going to tell you about the sector in this framework that I know best the higher education sector I'm so proud to be able to tell you that my University the University of Queensland was the first age friendly University in the southern hemisphere it joined a worldwide group of over 85 universities that are united in aspiring to 10 principles to make their universities more accessible these 10 principles can be summed up in the very first principle all people older people included should have access to all of the activities of the university

and so you could say across the lifespan everyone should be included in all aspects of the life of the University but this has required some rethinking because the activities of Life traditionally have been very tied to chronologic iCal age when you're young you go to school when you're M aged in the middle of life you work in older age you retire and then you die but with the benefits of Greater longevity now we have a new view of the activities of life so we can dip in and out of Education in and out of work

we can take various ious points of time for leisure activities and for caregiving responsibilities therefore the growth and development opportunities that education offers can be interwoven throughout the lifespan unfortunately not all universities have been able to grasp and take advantage of this change from a traditional to a more modern Viewpoint what would it look like if you took that Viewpoint well for example research I do research on dementia but this does not mean that I do research on people living with Dementia or for people living with dementia but my colleagues and I do research with

people living with dementia we co-design our research questions and our projects so they're targeted to the absolute problems and potential Solutions experienced by this group think about the classroom think about the great opportunity of having a wide variety of Ages sitting in the same room learning together sharing their hopes and their fears and their experiences think about reaching out to stakeholders who represent later life or older people this will ensure that the research and teaching that we do at the university is grounded in policy and is relevant to that policy let's do a thought experiment

about this University let's say that a 58-year-old woman is walking across campus campus why is she there well she could be a professor on her way to yet another meeting she could be someone who's just been hired by the university just gotten her degree and she's off to give her very first class she could be an undergraduate student or a post-graduate student she could be a person living with early onset dementia on her way to participate in a research study she could be a person living with early onset dementia on her way to meet her

research team to revise their ethics application on their co-designed project you can't assume what 58 is but 58 can do can can be anything so how can all of us help 58 and 68 and 88 and 108 overcome the stigma and the barriers of agism I'm going to tell you how avoid lookism lism is the most primitive of all of the isms it's making these assumptions just on how people look and if for example you make agist assumptions of a person from a historically marginalized background the damages are even more profound call out agism as

and where you see it the research shows that agism is the least called out of the isms and the most difficult to address at a systemic level support those people who are breaking the mold let me give you some examples an 80-year-old Aboriginal woman picks up paint and paint brushes for the first time to Dazzle us with her vision of country a lifelong bird watcher picks up their citizen science software inputs it into their phone contributing to the worldwide database of knowledge of our ecosystems a lifelong fashionista in New York finds a whole new generation

to inspire on Instagram at age 101 these people are role models and they push the boundaries for all of us because we need a world for all people of all ages each and every one of us can help to create a long life of possibilities of opportunities for others and for ourselves what will you do today that will make that [Applause] [Music] happen