Thursday 8th July 2010

Post-conference ESRC Seminar: The 'New' Ageing Populations: Mapping identities, health, needs and responses across the lifecourse

We are pleased to be holding the second seminar in the ESRC funded Seminar Series at the British Society of Gerontology 39th Annual Conference

There has been considerable public interest in the social and health-related effects of population ageing and increasing longevity on the developed and developing world. These impacts are not only demographic but also epidemiological, with the weight of disease and disability now being experienced largely by older people. However, contemporaneous advances in preventative and curative medicine, as well as changes in the social contexts in which health interventions are delivered, have enabled many people to live a longer and healthier life than was possible a few decades ago, either by surviving childhood due to these developments, living longer lives because of continuing medical advances, or living past an earlier ‘failure’ of medicines regulation. There is now also a greater realisation that what constitutes ‘ageing’ is becoming more difficult to demarcate, whether in terms of physiological ‘normality,’ cultural expectations, or social provision. Changes to the patterning and nature of ‘old age’ therefore raise important questions about our understanding of the contemporary circumstances surrounding ageing for researchers, providers and policy makers alike.

The aim of this seminar series is to map the nature of the emergence of this rapid growth in  populations not normally associated with ‘old age’. We also wish to widen debates of about health, identity and disability and draw together their connections with ageing by examining them from multiple perspectives and locating  their impact on, as well as implications for, biomedical science as the rapid growth of new ageing populations focuses attention on areas not usually connected with the study of old age.

The ESRC Seminar series is an academic collaboration between King’s College London (Dr Karen Lowton, Senior Lecturer in Ageing & Health, Institute of Gerontology), University College London (Paul Higgs, Professor of the Sociology of Ageing, Division of Research Strategy) and University of Surrey (Dr Karen Ballard, Senior Lecturer in Women's Health, Postgraduate Medical School).

A series of six seminars are taking place during 2010 and 2011 

Seminar 2: Thursday 8th July 2010 
New ageing populations: Calamity or Eucatastrophe?
Time: 1.30 – 6pm. Refreshments will be available before and after the seminar 
Venue: Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8 3PH 

Our second seminar will seek to create an understanding of how new ageing populations pose both challenges and opportunities to conventional approaches to biomedicine. It will also examine the nature of social positioning, marginalization, and social engagement in shaping identities. Speakers at this event are:

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton

Carol Walker Professor of Social Policy, University of Lincoln

An important feature of each seminar will be a poster competition where researchers would be encouraged to present a piece of work or address an issue pertaining to the theme of the seminar. There will be a prize of £100 for the author(s) the best poster as decided by the seminar organisers at each seminar. Please send an abstract of 250 words to newagepop@kcl.ac.uk  by 8 June 2010 for the July seminar.

There is no charge for attendance at any of these seminars. A limited number of travel bursaries for postgraduate students are available. Please contact newagepop@kcl.ac.uk to register your attendance and for travel bursary enquiries.

Future Seminar Speakers include:
Sharon Kaufmann, Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Institute for Health & Aging, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco
Bryan S Turner, the Alona Evans Distinguished Visiting Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College, Faculty Associate of the Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University.

For further information about all six seminars in the series, visit www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/geront/news/esrcseminar/programme.html, email newagepop@kcl.ac.uk or contact Dr Karen Lowton 0207 848 2566