Have you heard of ‘Ageism’?

What if I told you that, every second person in the world is believed to hold ageist attitudes? that means, it includes you and me.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a report from the World Health Organization in 2021: https://www.who.int/teams/social-determinants-of-health/demographic-change-and-healthy-ageing/combatting-ageism/global-report-on-ageism

So, what exactly is ageism ?

Ageism is the term for preconceptions, bias, and discrimination that are directed towards oneself and other people based on their age. The World Health Organization claims that children as young as four start to internalize the age stereotypes of our culture. Ageism has a detrimental effect on one’s physical and emotional well-being, and studies have linked it to an early mortality. According to one study, persons who had a good attitude on aging lived on average seven and a half years longer than those who had a negative outlook.(Levy et al., 2002)

The behaviour can be influenced by the thinking. For instance, presuming that everyone who is “aged” is less capable, functional, or able to engage may prevent someone from recovering as quickly, seeking care, or engaging in physical exercise. Ageism is the term for prejudice towards people of any age, whether they be young or old, but it disproportionately affects older people.

Ageism has detrimental effects on people’s health and wellbeing on a wide range of levels. Ageism is linked to worse physical and mental health, more social isolation and loneliness, more financial insecurity, a lower quality of life, and early death in older individuals. Ageism is thought to be responsible for 6.3 million depression cases worldwide. It affects people’s health and wellbeing negatively because it overlaps with and exacerbates other types of prejudice and disadvantage, such as those connected to sex, race, and disability.

While the number of elderly people dying from heat-related causes is rising, Human Rights Watch has documented how older people are having difficulty accessing emergency services during extreme weather events linked to climate change (Spannagel, 2021). When there are conflicts, older people are more likely to be caught up in the fighting, and humanitarian efforts frequently fall short of ensuring that older refugees have access to the medication they require (The Neglected Health Needs of Older Syrian Refugees in Jordan | Forced Migration Review, 2018). Given the upper age limits in cancer screening recommendations and other forms of discrimination, such as those based on gender, race, economic status, or insurance status, there are even evidence that older Black women in the United States are dying from cervical cancer at exceptionally high rates (It Should Not Happen: Alabama’s Failure to Prevent Cervical Cancer Death in the Black Belt, 2018).

The reason why I talked about ageism in this blog post is because it proves how discrimination affects everyone; not just teenagers or children. Even older people are affected by it, and this is why we have to do something about discrimination and prejudice towards others in this world.

Work Cited

Levy, B. R., Slade, M. D., Kunkel, S. R., & Kasl, S. V. (2002). Longevity increased by positive self-perceptions of aging. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(2), 261–270. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.261

Spannagel, E. (2021, October 1). Record Canada Heat Harms Older People and People with Disabilities. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/09/record-canada-heat-harms-older-people-and-people-disabilities

The neglected health needs of older Syrian refugees in Jordan | Forced Migration Review. (2018, February 20). https://www.fmreview.org/syria2018/lupieri

It Should Not Happen: Alabama’s Failure to Prevent Cervical Cancer Death in the Black Belt. (2018).