HSRC Conference Explores ‘Value in Aging’
Speakers and audience alike were enthusiastic, engaged and — at the end of the day-long Supporting Healthy Aging Conference in Eureka in May — hopeful about prospects for growing older for themselves and others in Humboldt County.
The annual conference, sponsored by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center (HSRC), was sold out as participants focused on a theme of “Value in Aging” and how aging is shaped by social connection, purpose, health, culture and access to supportive systems to create community health across generations.
“HSRC’s core function and goal are to support our seniors and to help give them the resources they need to live independently, safely and happily in Humboldt County,” said conference co-organizer René Arché, HSRC director of communications & marketing. “I am thrilled by today’s turnout and the quality of the discussion from start to finish.”
Samatha Day, HSRC’s director of social services and conference co-organizer, led a conference roundtable discussion by asking experts, “What does value in aging mean to you?”
For Professor Jamie Jensen, Ph.D., of the Department of Social Work at Cal Poly Humboldt, recognizing and valuing aging is an increasingly fundamental societal question in a nation where people over 65 are an ever-larger part of the population.
“It’s really about leaning into and embracing the beauty in growing older and what we all bring and contribute to communities,” she said.
As Baby Boomers come of age, more than 61.2 million Americans are 65 or older, according to federal census data, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, now 18% of the total and up by about one-third just since 2004. This creates both a need and an opportunity for communities, presenters said.
Dr. Jennifer Heidmann, chief medical officer of Redwood Coast PACE at HSRC, agreed. “We need to look at aging in a different way, and at all the beautiful facets of it,” she said. “But we also need to acknowledge that aging is hard. It’s challenging at times. It’s part of being human, if we are lucky enough.
“Having respect, dignity and purpose, and working together to make our communities more elder-friendly and elder-centered, are ways we can increase the value of aging,” she said.
Elizabeth Lara-O’Rourke, CEO of United Indian Health Services, said embracing “elder” is a central part of her Yurok heritage. She demonstrated the value of aging by bringing an elder — her 91-year-old father, Walt Lara — with her to the conference. Yurok elders like her dad are examples and inspiration for what it means for a community to value aging, she said.
“I love being elder,” Lara-O’Rourke said. “When I turned 50, I started thinking, ‘I want to bring elder back. I want elders to be honored and thought of in the most positive way. How can I do that?’”
Keynote speaker Alexis Abramson, Ph.D., a gerontologist and longevity expert, called for more intergenerational connection between young people and grandparent-aged role models. Echoing Lara-O’Rourke’s theme of centering the experience of elders in our communities, Abramson called for “working together to make a community that brings children and elders together.
“We’re so segregated and we don’t understand the value that each can bring to one another,” she said. “Why not bring the two together and create an environment that’s symbiotic instead of separated?”
Previously, Andrew Levine, Ph.D., an Arcata clinical neuropsychologist, discussed the science behind cognitive health and how lifestyle and medical factors may influence dementia risk. One of those, he said, is the connection with others that helps keeps us engaged and involved as we age.
“There’s definitely a lot to learn from each other, not just elders,” Levine said. “It’s a collaborative thing to be able to listen and learn from each other.”
“Personally, my goal is to continue to have some kind of purpose when I wake up in the morning and to feel satisfied at the end of the day,” he said. “Prolong your life, but find purpose.”
Ted Pease is editor of Senior News.
