Ageism and Health: Research Reveals Close Links

Nearly all older grownups have experienced some type of ageism in their everyday lives; a new study finds whether it is seeing ageist messages and photos on television or the web, encountering individuals who mean that they are less capable just because they are older, or believing stereotypes concerning aging.

However, older adults with more health concerns appear most likely to have experienced this kind of “daily ageism,” according to new findings published by a team from the University of Oklahoma, Norman, and the University of Michigan. Data from a study of more than 2,000 individuals between the ages of 50 and 80 originated from the National Poll on Healthy Aging.

The higher a person’s score on a range of everyday ageism experiences, the more likely they were to be in poor mental or physical health, to have more chronic health conditions, or to show symptoms of being depressed.

Though the study published in JAMA Network Open cannot justify and effect, the authors note that the links between ageism and health need to be explored further and considered when designing programs to motivate well-being and good health among older adults.

“These findings raise the question of whether aging-related health problems reflect the adverse impacts of ageism and present the possibility that anti-ageism efforts could be a method for promoting older adult health and well-being,” states first author Julie Ober Allen, Ph.D., M.P.H., Department of Health and Exercise Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman.

Allen worked on the study during her time as a postdoctoral fellow at the Population Studies Center at U-M’s Institute for Social Study.

The team previously published initial findings in a report from the NPHA, based at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and supported by Michigan Medicine and AARP, U-M’s academic medical center.

However, the new evaluation goes further and utilizes the Everyday Ageism Scale created by the team. That scale, validated and published last year, determines a score based upon a person’s answers to 10 questions regarding their own experiences and beliefs concerning aging.

In all, 93% of the older grownups evaluated stated they regularly experienced a minimum of one of the ten forms of ageism. The most common one, experienced by almost 80%, was agreeing with the statement that says: “having health problems is part of aging”– even if 83% of individuals evaluated defined their own health as good or very good. This sort of “internalized” ageism also consisted of agreeing with the statement that feeling lonely, depressed, sad, or concerned are part of aging.

On the other hand, 65% of the older adults said they regularly hear, see or read jokes about older people or messages that older grownups are unattractive or unfavorable.

Another class of ageist experiences- which the researchers call interpersonal ageism- was reported as a regular occurrence by 45% of the respondents. These consisted of experiences involving another person, where the older individual felt it was assumed that they were having a problem with utilizing technology, seeing, hearing, understanding, remembering, or doing something independently- or that they do not do anything valuable.

The researchers calculated Everyday Ageism scores for each one of the more than 2,000 poll respondents based on their answers to all the poll questions.

The overall mean score was just over 10. As a group, individuals who were ages 65 to 80 scored over 11, indicating more ageism experiences those among those ages 50-64.

People who had lower levels of education or income, and those who resided in rural areas, also had mean ageism scores that were higher than others. Older adults who reported spending a minimum of four hours daily watching television, reading magazines, or searching the internet had higher scores than those with less exposure to such media.

After that, researchers considered everyone’s individual score due to what they had said regarding their own health, consisting of self-rated physical and mental health, several chronic health conditions, and report of depression symptoms.

They found a close link between all four health-related measures and higher scores. Meaning that, those who reported higher Everyday Ageism scores were more likely to have reported that their overall mental or physical health was reasonable or poor, more chronic health conditions, and depression symptoms.

Many of these linkages had to do with internalized ageism measures: the questions that measured how highly an individual agreed with the statements regarding health problems, loneliness, and unhappiness being part of getting older. However, experiences with the interpersonal kinds of ageism were also linked to health-related measures, as were some aspects of ageist messages.

The connection between ageism experiences in older adults’ everyday lives and health, specifically senior author and interested poll director, Preeti Malani, M.D., (a professor at Michigan Medicine with a background in caring for older adults).

“The truth that our poll respondents who said they had felt the most types of ageism were also more likely to state their physical or mental health was poor or reasonable or to have a chronic condition such as heart or diabetes problem, is something that requires more examination,” she says.

Journal Reference:

Julie Ober Allen, Erica Solway, Matthias Kirch, Dianne Singer, Jeffrey T. Kullgren, Valerie Moïse, Preeti N. Malani. Experiences of Everyday Ageism and the Health of Older US Adults. JAMA Network Open, 2022; 5 (6): e2217240 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.17240