For this month’s episode, we spoke to Penn State’s Marty Sliwinski, PhD, Director of the Center for Healthy Aging and Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, and Stephanie Cole, Director of Special Projects and Executive Assistant at the Office of the Secretary at Pennsylvania Department of Aging, about challenges and opportunities related to aging.

This episode was recorded in February 2020 before the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and mandatory physical and social distancing. The Podcast Team believes the discussion of our country’s aging population is more salient than ever as individuals, families, and children remain quarantined in their homes to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and give our healthcare system a fighting chance. And since individuals of advanced age are presented with higher risks, this is more important that ever.

Aging is a lifelong process, beginning at birth, and continues throughout adulthood. Through this lens, we begin to understand the problems that our country’s population faces now and in the next several decades when we will reach a cultural tipping point in which there will be more people over age 65 than age 18 and under. For that reason, there must be a shift in integrating our country’s systems like healthcare, housing, and transportation to better adapt to our aging population.