May is Older Americans Month, a time to recognize the contributions that older Americans have made to our country and, indeed the world, and to honor them for the leadership they have provided and the sacrifices they have made. This year's Older Americans Month marks a pivotal moment as we celebrate historic milestones of our nation's essential aging programs.
Passed in 1965, The Older Americans Act was a landmark piece of legislation that profoundly improved the lives and well-being of our aging population by creating a nation-wide network of agencies to provide comprehensive services to older adults. And in that same year, Medicare was enacted, giving health care coverage to millions of older adults who had previously had little or no access before. One more milestone to add to this list is the passage of Medicare Part D in 2003 providing Medicare recipients with coverage for medicines.
These anniversaries provide an opportunity to celebrate these valuable programs while assessing the well-being of older Americans today. The long-term impact of these measures has been remarkable — better health, longer lives, a great increase in multi-generation families, and the economic and social benefits of the volunteerism, work ethic and wisdom of older Americans to younger generations and to each other.
As we reflect on what strides have been made, we should also raise the question of what more must be done to strengthen and protect their health and wellbeing. There are significant issues that need to be addressed if the growing number of older adults are going to be able to continue to fare well. Among the highest priorities are the great increase in the aging population itself and its impact on existing services and facilities; the growing impact of memory loss conditions in that population and the resulting need for specialized care; and the challenges facing family caregivers as well as the shortage of caregiver services in general.
But there is also much to celebrate. One area of great progress for older adults in recent decades has been the advancements in preventative and treatment healthcare options. Many older Americans living today grew up in a time where there were few or no treatments for many critical conditions and diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases and HIV aids. Fortunately, we live in a different time. There are literally thousands of medicines and devices that have been discovered or invented to control or even cure conditions that in previous years took a heavy toll on the lives of older adults.
Even more, there is the growing field of preventive medicine that is advancing the development of safe and effective vaccines to keep older and/or at-risk adults protected from many conditions such as RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus), Pneumonia, Influenza and Covid which make up the Fall and Winter Respiratory Disease Season as well as other infectious and contagious diseases. Encouragingly, the CDC has taken steps recently to lower the routine age-based recommendation for the pneumonia vaccine from 65 to 50 enabling much earlier access to protection against a disease that hospitalizes an estimated 225,000 adults in the United States each year. Likewise, in April of this year, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted for a similar recommendation for the RSV vaccine to make it also available to adults 50 to 65 who have health conditions that put them at risk.
Older Americans led the way in getting vaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic and thus know the importance and value of disease prevention and access to quality health care and services. Common sense policies like lowering the age at which an adult can receive vaccines, helps not only to support a longer, healthier life, but also significant cost savings to the healthcare system as whole.
The 60 million Older Americans we celebrate this month are an enormous, resourceful, determined collection of individuals who are an invaluable resource to our country. In recognizing them this month, we must also recognize the challenges they face and the obligations we, as a society, face in supporting well-being. May is not only an important time to celebrate older Americans, it is a prime time to urge them to protect their health by getting a Medicaid check-up, to make certain their vaccinations are up to date, and to check in with their local senior center or area agency on aging about new services and programs. And last, but definitely not least, it is a time when every older American should be encouraged to speak out on issues of importance to them and be respectfully and thoughtfully heard.
Bob Blancato is the executive director of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs (NANASP).
