An Inclusive Community: Architecture for Age Integration

<p>Our elderly population is increasing and people are living longer. Healthcare advancements mean that illnesses are more controlled and people do not die as young. Due to our age-segregated society, the issue of elderly social isolation is at an all time high. Retirement villages are, for the most part, gated communities, isolated away from the rest of the younger population and wider community. The generation gap between young and older continues to broaden and issues such as elderly neglect, loneliness, financial abuse and other mental-health related problems are becoming more common. This research finds that many suburban community facilities often neglect the needs of this growing senior demographic. The site at 245 Karori Road, Karori, is used to test and challenge the norms of current suburban community architecture typologies for social inclusiveness. The site is tested in three iterative stages led by an interdisciplinary literature review to address this overarching problem of age-segregation in suburban communities. A major focus in this research is to target the suburb’s youngest and oldest members to shift negative ageist attitudes through providing spaces for intergenerational interaction. This research portfolio is a critique of current community architecture typologies such as the community centre and public space, to investigate ways these typologies could be redefined and altered to play a key role in countering the negative effects of age-segregation.</p>

An Inclusive Community: Architecture for Age Integration

<p>Our elderly population is increasing and people are living longer. Healthcare advancements mean that illnesses are more controlled and people do not die as young. Due to our age-segregated society, the issue of elderly social isolation is at an all time high. Retirement villages are, for the most part, gated communities, isolated away from the rest of the younger population and wider community. The generation gap between young and older continues to broaden and issues such as elderly neglect, loneliness, financial abuse and other mental-health related problems are becoming more common. This research finds that many suburban community facilities often neglect the needs of this growing senior demographic. The site at 245 Karori Road, Karori, is used to test and challenge the norms of current suburban community architecture typologies for social inclusiveness. The site is tested in three iterative stages led by an interdisciplinary literature review to address this overarching problem of age-segregation in suburban communities. A major focus in this research is to target the suburb’s youngest and oldest members to shift negative ageist attitudes through providing spaces for intergenerational interaction. This research portfolio is a critique of current community architecture typologies such as the community centre and public space, to investigate ways these typologies could be redefined and altered to play a key role in countering the negative effects of age-segregation.</p>

Generativity in Life Review: Discovering Life Lessons and Wisdom in Naturalistic Intergenerational Conversations

According to the theory of generativity, one would expect older adults to inherently feature life lessons in naturalistic conversations with younger adults. Little though, is known about the process of these conversations, and to what extent they convey wisdom characteristics. In this project, intergenerational conversations between university students and older adults living in assisted and independent living communities were analyzed to identify life lessons within older adults’ informal life reviews. In the original study, 37 young and 52 older adults engaged in an intergenerational interaction as part of an undergraduate course. These conversations were recorded with participants’ consent, and transcribed with identifying information removed. For the current project, we analyzed 15 of these recorded conversations, averaging 46 minutes each between 10 students and 5 older adults to (1) develop a coding scheme and procedure to examine life lessons in intergenerational conversations, and (2) investigate whether wisdom characteristics are embedded into life lessons shared in this context. On average, each older adult referenced 4 life lessons (SD = 2) per conversation, which were coded for the following constructs: meaning making, personal growth, emotional valence, wisdom characteristics, life lesson type, and autobiographical memory type. Exploratory analyses suggest life lessons are inherently integrated into naturalistic intergenerational conversations, and that reflectivity is the most frequently expressed wisdom characteristic. This supports previous research identifying reflectivity as key to wisdom, and to the process of generativity. Further analysis is needed to illuminate the value of intergenerational conversations, particularly in a time of age segregation and ageism.

Age-Friendly Universities (AFU): Necessary Partners for Age-Friendly Communities

The pioneering Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative, endorsed in 2016 by GSA’s Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE), calls for institutions of higher education to respond to shifting demographics and the needs of aging populations through more age-friendly campus programs, practices, and partnerships. The case will be made that AFU institutions can also play vital roles in helping neighboring communities develop, launch, assess, and sustain their age-friendly efforts through research and related endeavors that engage students and faculty. In addition, AFU campus-community partnerships can play a critical role in breaking down age-segregation that fuels ageism, building intergenerational connections, and increasing aging literacy among rising community members - all of which are necessary steps for building age-friendly communities.

Earliest evidence of herd-living and age segregation amongst dinosaurs

Sauropodomorph dinosaurs dominated the herbivorous niches during the first 40 million years of dinosaur history (Late Triassic–Early Jurassic), yet palaeobiological factors that influenced their evolutionary success are not fully understood. For instance, knowledge on their behaviour is limited, although herding in sauropodomorphs has been well documented in derived sauropods from the Late Jurassic and Cretaceous. Here we report an exceptional fossil occurrence from Patagonia that includes over 100 eggs and skeletal specimens of 80 individuals of the early sauropodomorph Mussaurus patagonicus, ranging from embryos to fully-grown adults, with an Early Jurassic age as determined by high-precision U–Pb zircon geochronology. Most specimens were found in a restricted area and stratigraphic interval, with some articulated skeletons grouped in clusters of individuals of approximately the same age. Our new discoveries indicate the presence of social cohesion throughout life and age-segregation within a herd structure, in addition to colonial nesting behaviour. These findings provide the earliest evidence of complex social behaviour in Dinosauria, predating previous records by at least 40 My. The presence of sociality in different sauropodomorph lineages suggests a possible Triassic origin of this behaviour, which may have influenced their early success as large terrestrial herbivores.

Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada

Hadrosaurid (duck-billed) dinosaur bonebeds are exceedingly prevalent in upper Cretaceous (Campanian–Maastrichtian) strata from the Midwest of North America (especially Alberta, Canada, and Montana, U.S.A) but are less frequently documented from more northern regions. The Wapiti Formation (Campanian–Maastrichtian) of northwestern Alberta is a largely untapped resource of terrestrial palaeontological information missing from southern Alberta due to the deposition of the marine Bearpaw Formation. In 2018, the Boreal Alberta Dinosaur Project rediscovered the Spring Creek Bonebed, which had been lost since 2002, along the northern bank of the Wapiti River, southwest of Grande Prairie. Earlier excavations and observations of the Spring Creek Bonebed suggested that the site yielded young hadrosaurines. Continued work in 2018 and 2019 recovered ~300 specimens that included a minimum of eight individuals, based on the number of right humeri. The morphology of several recovered cranial elements unequivocally supports lambeosaurine affinities, making the Spring Creek sample the first documented occurrence of lambeosaurines in the Wapiti Formation. The overall size range and histology of the bones found at the site indicate that these animals were uniformly late juveniles, suggesting that age segregation was a life history strategy among hadrosaurids. Given the considerable size attained by the Spring Creek lambeosaurines, they were probably segregated from the breeding population during nesting or caring for young, rather than due to different diet and locomotory requirements. Dynamic aspects of life history, such as age segregation, may well have contributed to the highly diverse and cosmopolitan nature of Late Cretaceous hadrosaurids.

Modelling the impact of interventions on the progress of the COVID-19 outbreak including age segregation

In this work, a SEIR-type mathematical model of the COVID-19 outbreak was developed that describes individuals in compartments by infection stage and age group. The model assumes a close well-mixed community with no migrations. Infection rates and clinical and epidemiological information govern the transitions between stages of the disease. The impact of specific interventions (including the availability of critical care) on the outbreak time course, the number of cases and the outcome of fatalities were evaluated. Data available from the COVID-19 outbreak from Spain as of mid-May 2020 was used. Key findings in our model simulation results indicate that (i) universal social isolation measures appear effective in reducing total fatalities only if they are strict and the number of daily interpersonal contacts is reduced to very low numbers; (ii) selective isolation of only the elderly (at higher fatality risk) appears almost as effective as universal isolation in reducing total fatalities but at a possible lower economic and social impact; (iii) an increase in the number of critical care capacity directly avoids fatalities; (iv) the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) appears to be effective to dramatically reduce total fatalities when adopted extensively and to a high degree; (v) extensive random testing of the population for more complete infection recognition (accompanied by subsequent self-isolation of infected aware individuals) can dramatically reduce the total fatalities only above a high percentage threshold that may not be practically feasible.

Ageism in Higher Education: Historical Reasons and Contemporary Age-Friendly Solutions

The need for greater attention to aging in higher education is indisputable. Changing age demographics are reshaping societies and challenging colleges and universities to consider how they can respond to aging populations through new approaches to teaching, research, and community engagement. However, ageism permeates academia in systematic as well as implicit ways, holding higher education back from expanding attention to aging. This presentation will describe how ageism manifests itself and how the pioneering Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative with its ten guiding principles offers a framework to address the neglect of age in academia by advocating for greater age-diversity and inclusion. Special attention will be given to an AFU focus on breaking down age-segregation by bringing younger and older learners together around educational goals of mutual interest, engaging in collaborative teaching and learning experiences, and building intergenerational solidarity in line with social-psychological principles known to reduce prejudice and discrimination. Part of a symposium sponsored by Age-Friendly University (AFU) Interest Group.