The Atlantic featured research by Mirielle Jacobson of the USC Leonard Davis School and Tom Chang of the USC Marshall Schoolin a story on using financial incentives to motivate individuals to get vaccinated. “I think there are a lot of people who are in this camp of ‘Yeah, I’m gonna get a booster but I’m not in any rush.’ And I would think those folks are probably pretty responsive” to financial incentives, Jacobson said.
Longevity Technology interviewed Valter Longo on the importance of getting fasting right in the pursuit of a longer and healthier life. “So now everybody’s fasting, and we don’t seem to realize that fasting is just a word,” says Longo. “It’s like eating – is eating good for you? What does that mean? It can be good for you and terrible for you. It’s the same with fasting – it depends how you do it.”
Next Avenue featured a profile of Brett Anderson, USC Leonard Davis master’s student and former lead singer of the rock band The Donnas. “Sometimes, members of the aging population don’t know how to obtain the medical or physical treatments they need because they don’t know how to get the processes started,” says Anderson. “I want to help them get set up with the resources they need. Once they can have stability in those areas, then we can focus on the emotional needs.”
U.S. News & World Report quoted Jennifer Ailshire on strategies for aging successfully and not feeling limited by age. “My grandmother would go out dancing into her 80s,” she said. “I thought it was really fantastic that this woman who loved dancing would go to a place where there were no other older people, just middle-aged and younger people, because she loved to dance.”
Professors from some of this semester’s gerontology courses share how everyone can use their classroom lessons in their everyday lives.
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Asian Journal quoted USC Family Caregiver Support Center Director Donna Benton on the need to recognize caregivers as essential frontline workers. “Many times the care we have here in California the majority of care is done by us: family members and elder caregivers. We are an essential part of the health care system,” she said.
Consumer Reports quoted Cary Kreutzer in an article on how older adults can meet their protein needs. “While [protein drinks and enriched foods] may be high in protein, someone eating a predominantly plant-based diet would still need to be sure they were balancing protein sources to not be deficient in single amino acids that are considered essential,” she said.
During an Ethnic Media Services community conversation with ethnic media organized by Saint Paul AME Church in San Bernardino, Black Voice News, and California Black Media, community leaders and Black family caregivers discussed the importance of vaccines in helping keep themselves safe and able to care for their families. Family caregivers have not been considered essential workers, and therefore were ineligible to be first in line when Covid vaccines appeared on the scene in early 2021, said Donna Benton, director of the USC Family Caregiver Support Center and the Los Angeles Caregiver Resource Center. There are more than 4.5 million family caregivers in California alone, but Benton said they are largely invisible in the broader healthcare system. “Caregivers are saying ‘we want the masks.’ We need PPE. We need to be prioritized for boosters, and also for testing,’” she said.
Even when faced with larger structural risks, such as living in an area with high infection rates, people who avoid large gatherings and other risky behaviors are less likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19, say USC researchers.
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ScienceDaily highlighted an editorial coauthored by Mara Mather on how the locus coeruleus region of the brain, also known as the “blue spot,” helps focus attention on relevant information. “Due to its small size and its location deep in the brainstem, it was previously almost impossible to investigate the noradrenergic nucleus non-invasively in living humans. Fortunately, over the past years, animal research has revealed that fluctuations in pupil size are linked to the activity of the blue spot. Thus, our eyes can be regarded as a window to a brain region that long seemed inaccessible,” Mather said.
- More Than Just Genes: Many Factors Affect How Fast We Age
- A Half-Century of Vision: 50 Years of the USC Leonard Davis School
- Rapid Blood Pressure Fluctuations Linked to Early Signs of Brain Degeneration in Older Adults
- Hanson-Thorell Family Research Award Supports New Study to Improve Dementia Diagnosis for All
- New NIA-Funded Center to Help Older Adults Live Longer, Healthier Lives
