Research on aging: its future in the United States.

Abstract

Aging will have to become a major issue for all of us who are deeply concerned with the field of mental health. Although I wil[ discuss psychiatry's contribution to the field of aging, my principal focus will be on the broad agenda of research on aging. I will stress, however, that we in psychiatry need to work with our colleagues in related mental health fields to maximize our contribution to the care, service, and dignity of older Americans. There is a new politics of aging. In 1974, the elderly comprised 15 percent of the voting population, but cast 17 percent of the votes. Some 51 percent of the older population voted--the highest proportion of all age groups, except for the middle-aged from 45 to 64. Clearly, the potential political clout of the elderly reinforces the importance of research on aging. Research on aging is relatively new. Interest began in the 1940s, with the founding of the Gerontological Society, the American Geriatrics Society, and a private gift of $10,000 from the josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation to the federal government with the observation that aging was one of the great social and health issues of our time. It was the Nobel Prize-winning Russian medical scientist Elie Metchnikoff who introduced the term "gerontology"; an American pediatrician, Ignez Nascher, introduced the term "geriatrics" to refer to the specific knowledge regarding the treatment and prevention of illness among older people. This is the century of the elderly. In 1900, only 3 million Americans were over 65. Today there are nearly 23 million--an increase from 4 percent of the population to nearly 11 percent. 3'p3 Now, pause and consider what is ahead. Your children and mine--those youngsters who "greened" America--will grow up, then grow old in about the year 2020 to 2030. We estimate that by then between 17 and 23 percent of the American population will be over 65. The estimates vary because of unpredictable birth rates and rates of emigration, but every projection in this century regarding the number of older people