Healthy Aging

In observance of Healthy Aging Month, Patricia D’Antonio, Executive Director for the National Center to Reframe Aging recently joined ODPHP Director Paul Reed for a discussion on the myriad ways we encounter, and even perpetuate, ageism in our everyday lives, and the importance of dispelling negative public perceptions of older adulthood and revisiting aging as not something that we “arrive at”, but rather a continuous process that we experience throughout our lifecycle.

Heart disease has the potential to affect all people. The persistent myth that it is primarily a “men’s disease” simply isn’t true. In fact, heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States. Yet only about half of women recognize this. Heart disease accounts for about 1 in 5 deaths among women every year as compared to 1 in 4 deaths in men. About 1 in 16 women age 20 years and older have coronary artery disease, the most common type of heart disease.

Contemporary approaches to healthy living, with an increasing attentiveness to social determinants of health and the Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being, hold potential — even real promise — to provide us with longer and greater-quality lives, especially through our later years. Focusing and sustaining meaningful action in support of that potential — that promise — requires a broader perspective on healthy aging and an open and inclusive conversation on the subject.