Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Healthy You
    • Job listings
    • Q&As
    • Special sections
  • Multimedia
    • Quiz
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • FAQs
    • Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • For APHA members
    • Internships
    • Change of address
  • About
    • About The Nation's Health
    • Submissions
    • Permissions
    • Purchase articles
    • Join APHA
  • Contact us
    • Feedback
  • APHA
    • AJPH
    • NPHW

User menu

  • My alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
The Nation's Health
  • APHA
    • AJPH
    • NPHW
  • My alerts
The Nation's Health

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Healthy You
    • Job listings
    • Q&As
    • Special sections
  • Multimedia
    • Quiz
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • FAQs
    • Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • For APHA members
    • Internships
    • Change of address
  • About
    • About The Nation's Health
    • Submissions
    • Permissions
    • Purchase articles
    • Join APHA
  • Contact us
    • Feedback
  • Follow The Nation's Health on Twitter
  • Follow APHA on Twitter
  • Visit APHA on Facebook
  • Follow APHA on Youtube
  • Follow APHA on Instagram
  • Follow The Nation's Health RSS feeds
NewsNation

Public health preparing for growing needs of older adults as population swells in US

Teddi Nicolaus
The Nation's Health January 2025, 54 (10) 1-14;
Teddi Nicolaus
  • Search for this author on this site
Figure
Photo by Moyo Studio, courtesy iStcokphoto

“Every community in America wants to support healthy aging.”

— Terry Fulmer

Kathy Burk took early retirement in 2019 to be a caregiver to her 90-year-old mother, who lives in rural Mississippi.

Despite 40 years as a front-line social worker, Burk said she was struck by the scarcity of services to improve the health and well-being of older adults and increase their chances to continue to live independently.

“Even with all of my professional experience, I struggled to find resources and support, and I was surprised by how many of my friends were in the same situation,” Burk, MSW, LCSW, former director of health services for the Mississippi State Department of Health, told The Nation’s Health. “You don’t think about it until you’re there.”

In 2020, Burk learned about a grant opportunity through Trust for America’s Health to help health departments improve their public health response to the needs of older adults and families. She reached out to her former colleagues at the Mississippi State Department of Health and urged them to apply.

Just three years after receiving the grant, Mississippi achieved TFAH’s prestigious Age-Friendly Public Health Systems “exemplar” status for its work to support the health of older adults and caregivers. TFAH’s recognition program is designed to highlight the efforts of state, local, tribal and territorial health departments around age-friendly initiatives. The need has never been greater.

Figure

Loyalty Litonjua, center, exercises during a group Zumba class at the Lorton Senior Center in Lorton, Virginia, in 2017. The center is part of a network that offers programs and activities for the county’s older adult population.

Photo by Evelyn Hockstein, courtesy The Washington Post/Getty Images

The U.S. population is older than it has ever been. A century ago, only about 1 in 20 Americans were ages 65 or older. Today, about 1 in 6 people, or 17% of the U.S. population, are 65 and above. By 2030, all the baby boomers will have reached age 65, bringing the number of older U.S. residents to 1 in every 5. And by 2034, for the first time in recorded history, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that seniors will outnumber children younger than 18.

As the nation’s older adult population swells, public and private sectors around the U.S. are mobilizing, partnering and collaborating to ensure the availability of services and support that allow older adults to thrive. Public health leaders hail it as a national movement, with efforts ranging from the highest levels of the federal government to grassroots work in rural areas.

In May, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Interagency Coordinating Committee on Healthy Aging and Age-Friendly Communities — authorized by the Older Americans Act — released a landmark report to Congress on aging in the United States.

Developed by leaders and experts from 16 federal agencies and departments, the framework sets the groundwork for a coordinated effort on healthy aging. It calls on the private and public sectors to work in partnership with older adults, family caregivers and other stakeholders to support health and independence for older adults.

The federal framework encompasses affordable and accessible housing, transportation, age-friendly workplaces, improved access to long-term services and more.

“Ten years ago, public health was hardly doing anything around older adults,” Megan Wolfe, JD, senior policy development manager at TFAH, told The Nation’s Health.

Figure

Bruce Brandt, a retired physicist and a volunteer with the Harpswell Aging at Home community initiative in Maine, works on wiring at a senior’s home in 2018. Local and national programs are partnering to help seniors live healthily.

Photo by Derek Davis, courtesy Portland Press Herald/Getty Images

Wolfe credits former TFAH President and CEO John Auerbach with bringing the need to light. A decade ago, while traveling the nation giving presentations, Auerbach began noticing that people everywhere were talking about their personal struggles with caring for elderly loved ones. In partnership with the John A. Hartford Foundation and with support from public health, policymakers, the aging sector, health care systems and academia, TFAH developed its Age-Friendly Public Health Systems framework, which is based on six areas of age-friendly public health activities.

“We are trying to be the lead in this, but we are not experts in all the fields, either, so our leadership is really trying to just enhance collaboration and communication around this area,” Wolfe said, noting that work is happening across the U.S.

Mississippi’s journey to achieving recognition as an Age-Friendly Public Health System — which was highlighted in a recent issue of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice — included establishing a cross-sectoral advisory committee, developing a statewide action plan, and partnering with a University of Massachusetts Boston team to create a healthy aging data report and county data profiles with more than 120 indicators across 82 counties. The county-specific population summaries have served as catalysts for action by documenting and quantifying the unmet needs of older adults in every county.

“It’s been absolutely amazing to see the level of appreciation for this work and the interest from a policy and equity lens,” said Kina White, DrPH, MHSA, director of the Mississippi Department of Health’s Office of Community Health Improvement. “We have several mayors who are now interested in becoming age- and dementia-friendly communities because of this work.”

Among its other achievements, the department developed partnerships with the Mississippi Public Health Association, AARP Mississippi, Area Agencies on Aging and faith communities to encourage age-friendly and intergenerational activities.

“Every community in America wants to support healthy aging,” said Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, president of the John A. Hartford Foundation, a private organization helping to facilitate partnerships to help create Age-Friendly Public Health Systems and elevate healthy aging as a core public health function. “We’ve seen great bipartisan support across states ranging from Mississippi to Washington.”

In Washington state, the Department of Health partnered with local health jurisdictions, area agencies on aging and the Northwest Washington Indian Health Board, a six-tribe consortium, to develop action plans that include building emergency preparedness, using data to inform planning and expanding fall prevention partnerships.

Engagement with the tribal consortium provided the first opportunity for TFAH’s age-friendly framework to be implemented in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner within a tribal elder community. Washington is also part of the Dementia Action Cooperative. In 2017, with encouragement and assistance from cooperative members, Washington applied for a small grant to work with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the National Alzheimer’s Association. The work has focused on activities around the National Healthy Brain Initiative.

“It is so important to understand brain health and healthy aging through the life course, and to understand the role of public health,” said Marci Getz, MPH, director of healthy aging initiatives at the Washington State Department of Health.

The National Association of County and City Health Officials is also engaging health departments on a range of programs and activities, including work to enhance the education and training of local health departments to promote brain health and healthy aging through strategic partnerships and training initiatives. ASTHO’s healthy aging portfolio has expanded to support public health agencies through capacity building and technical assistance.

Back in Mississippi, Burk continues to be active in numerous organizations that support healthy aging.

“We’re not doctors and we’re not nurses, so we don’t have a prescription pad,” she said. “Our relationships become our prescription pad, because that’s what we use to connect and help people.”

For more, visit www.acl.gov/ICC-Aging and www.afphs.org.

  • Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

The Nation's Health: 54 (10)
The Nation's Health
Vol. 54, Issue 10
January 2025
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • Index by author
  • Complete Issue (PDF)

Healthy You

Healthy You

Print
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article
We do not capture any email addresses.
Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Public health preparing for growing needs of older adults as population swells in US
(Your Name) has sent you a message from The Nation's Health
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this item on The Nation's Health website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Public health preparing for growing needs of older adults as population swells in US
Teddi Nicolaus
The Nation's Health January 2025, 54 (10) 1-14;

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Public health preparing for growing needs of older adults as population swells in US
Teddi Nicolaus
The Nation's Health January 2025, 54 (10) 1-14;
del.icio.us logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
Tweet Widget Facebook Like LinkedIn logo

Jump to section

  • Top

More in this TOC Section

  • Q&A with Michael Osterholm: Vaccine Integrity Project to serve as trusted voice on science
  • Health officials keeping watchful eye on H5N1 mutations in US
  • Scientific journals facing political interference, cuts
Show more Nation

Popular features

  • Healthy You
  • Special sections
  • Q&As
  • Quiz
  • Podcasts

FAQs

  • Advertising
  • Subscriptions
  • For APHA members
  • Submissions
  • Change of address

APHA

  • Join APHA
  • Annual Meeting
  • NPHW
  • AJPH
  • Get Ready
  • Contact APHA
  • Privacy policy

© 2025 The Nation's Health

Powered by HighWire