Resource Center

This report analyzes and compares media and advocacy organizations’ narratives about aging and older adults. The goal of the report is to suggest communications strategies that advocates can use to push media discourse in more productive directions, and ultimately increase public support for the policies and programs necessary to promote the well-being of older adults, and ensure their full participation in American society.

This report is the first step in a larger collaboration with the Leaders of Aging Organizations, a group administered by Grantmakers in Aging that includes the AARP, the American Federation for Aging Research, the American Geriatrics Society, the American Society on Aging, the Gerontological Society of America, the National Council on Aging, and the National Hispanic Council on Aging. The collaboration seeks to develop a new, evidence-based narrative around the process of aging in our country, and the roles and contributions of older Americans.

One aspect of the Administration for Community Living’s (ACL) mission is to assist American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian Elders to live with dignity and self-determination, while participating fully in their communities. The Administration on Aging, which is part of ACL, implements this mission through its Older Americans Act programs and relationships with other federal agencies and their services.

This report identifies a range of emerging technologies that have significant potential to assist older adults with successfully aging in place, each categorized by their role in supporting a set of primary capabilities. It identifies a number of focus areas that could support each capability and provides recommendations for research and development (R&D) that are required to develop key technology solutions over the coming decade. Cross-cutting topics that affect multiple capabilities are also discussed.

Every coroner or medical examiner in office on or after July 1st, 2015 in the state of Minnesota must maintain and make publicly available a statement of policy or principles to be used for communicating with families during a death investigation.

Grief and death are on everyone’s mind. For most of us the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated death and collective grief is unprecedented. Combined with social distancing protocol, end-of life issues, death care, and grief have become even more complex.

Medical Aid-In-Dying discusses the ethical and legal issues surrounding the practice of physician-assisted death (MAiD), where a doctor provides a patient with lethal medication at their request to end their life. It highlights that while most states prohibit MAiD, a few have legalized it, and debates continue within the medical and legal communities. The article emphasizes that state-of-the-art palliative care should be the primary approach to end-of-life suffering, with MAiD considered only as a last resort.

At a time of national debate over health care costs and insurance, a Pew Research Center survey on end-of-life decisions finds most Americans say there are some circumstances in which doctors and nurses should allow a patient to die. At the same time, however, a growing minority says that medical professionals should do everything possible to save a patient’s life in all circumstances.

Pew Research outlines 16 major American religious groups that explin how their faith traditions’ teachings address physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia and other end-of-life questions.

The religions include:

In recent years, legislatures and courts, religious leaders and scientists, citizens and patient advocates have all weighed in on end-of-life issues ranging from whether the terminally ill should have the right to take their own lives to how much treatment and sustenance those in the last stages of life should receive.