The right kind of volunteering – at the right dose – can not only make you feel good; it also can make you healthier. Volunteering could be your ticket to healthy aging, improving your chances for a longer life with less disability. That’s the message coming out of research by a new crop of gerontologists – among them, University of Southern California gerontologist Tara Gruenewald, PhD, M.P.H. – who have moved the spotlight from age-related diseases to a more positive focus on healthy aging.
At first, USC’s large, interdisciplinary series of studies into air pollution and brain health seemed outside the wheelhouse of USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology postdoc Jennifer Ailshire, a sociologist and demographer.
After leading researcher Caleb E. Finch tapped her to contribute to the massive project, however, she found an unexpected and extremely valuable niche. By conducting the first study to show how exposure to air pollution influences cognitive function in a national sample of older men and women, Ailshire found that living in areas of high air pollution is indeed an environmental risk to seniors’ brain health.
“The Ailshire study shows the unexpectedly adverse effects of air pollutants on brain function in US elderly,” said Finch, a University Professor and holder of the ARCO/William F. Kieschnick Chair in the Neurobiology of Aging at the USC Leonard Davis School. “Her multidisciplinary approach is a model for analyzing the complex interactions of location and outcomes of aging.”
“This is a new area of research for me, so having a group of scholars with such diversity of expertise to learn from has been tremendously helpful,” Ailshire said. “I credit Dr. Finch for his vision in creating such a vibrant and diverse community of scholars organized around an issue that is of great interest not only to researchers but also to policy makers and the public.”
Along with additional papers on longevity factors and financial health, Ailshire presented her findings at a poster session at the 65th annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) in San Diego, noting that her findings are especially pertinent to Southern California.
“I hope this research draws more attention to the adverse effects of air pollution on population health, and particularly the health of older adults,” she said. “This issue is especially relevant for the Los Angeles area where pollution levels are so high, far above national levels and EPA standards, and the population of older adults is growing so rapidly.”
Besides providing a valuable public health service, Ailshire’s study also highlights how gerontological research encompasses many fields and impacts every living—and therefore aging—person.
“Jennifer is very wise to have broadened her scope and to draw on the multidisciplinary resources here at USC,” said Eileen Crimmins, the USC Leonard Davis School AARP Chair holder and Ailshire’s preceptor. “What she has found has important implications for all of us.”
USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology doctoral student Jeff Laguna (Photo/Trevor Nelson)
End-of-life pain is poorly managed across the board, but why, even with palliative care efforts, do minorities suffer disproportionately?
Tackling what he calls the first study to investigate pain experiences among Whites, Blacks and Latinos following inpatient palliative care (IPC) consults, USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology doctoral student Jeff Laguna won the Gerontological Society of America’s Elaine M. Brody Award, given for excellence in research.
Co-authored with Rebecca Goldstein, MD, and USC Leonard Davis School Hanson Family Trust Assistant Professor of Gerontology Susan Enguídanos, PhD, MPH, the study was funded by the Archstone Foundation, examining 484 seriously ill patients and how their racial/ethnic differences impacted their end-of-life pain.
“We found something very interesting. Although palliative care did a great job at reducing pain among a racially/ethnically diverse patient population, it seems that Latinos were still more likely to report pain at hospital discharge,” Laguna said. “Previous research suggests a couple possible explanations, but a more detailed study will be needed to understand why Latinos appear to respond differently.”
Some of the existing explanations include the potential for Latinos to view end-of-life pain as a time of necessary and even welcome personal and/or spiritual cleansing, highlighting Laguna’s findings that IPC interventions may need to increase cultural sensitivity. He also finds that this increased awareness will inform future policy changes, which could help revolutionize the way we think about end-of-life care.
“After decades of recognizing the existence of ethnic disparities in health care access and health outcomes, we are continuing to see these patterns today. Illuminating these disparities is a first step to understanding and overcoming them,” Enguídanos said. “Jeff’s commitment to investigating disparities and improving equitable quality of care is commendable and critical.”
“For me, this award is the culmination of a lot of hard work, as I had to travel halfway across the country to master the analyses performed in this study,” Laguna said. “It is my hope that this study opens the door for a more detailed investigation. While this is the first step of many, I believe that it is an important step.”
Helping older adults has been USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology graduate student Brenda M. Vázquez’s day job for almost a decade, but she prides herself on continuing to search for new avenues and opportunities to serve.
In the past two years alone, she co-produced On the Move, a reality television show aimed at helping older Angelenos become physically active. She served as an advisor to the California State Libraries Association to create a health education toolkit for librarians to more efficiently serve the public. Vázquez also designed a pilot e-health promotion program, the Exergamers Wellness Club, to engage older adults in “playful” physical activity and self-care using technology, which won the top 2012 innovation award from the National Association of Senior Centers.
As the director of disease prevention and health promotion programs at Partners in Care Foundation, she has led numerous projects to enhance the health status and quality of life for older adults in Los Angeles, including the first implementation of evidence-based health promotion programs in Los Angeles senior centers. In light of her accomplishments and professional potential, Vázquez recently received a career development grant from the American Association of University Women, a national network dedicated to advancing equity for women and girls through advocacy, education and research.
“The AAUW award means a great deal to me as I prepare to take on formal research moving forward in my career,” she said. “Over the years, working with some of the most talented and committed professionals, we have conceptualized and implemented a variety of well received health innovation programs. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done in developing culturally appealing programs that engage and retain older participants.”
Vázquez joined Partners in Care in 2003 with the charge to start up a citywide health promotion program—the Wellness Club—under contract to the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging.
The program provides preventative clinical screenings, functional fitness assessments and evidence based health promotion programs to 16 senior centers and numerous community-based sites. The Wellness Club benefits from the guidance of a distinguished group of professionals in geriatrics and gerontology, including such experts as, Mary Cadogan, DrPH, from UCLA’s School of Nursing, Alison Moore, MD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine, and Dennee Frey, PharmD, a USC-affiliated pharmacist. Now in its tenth year, the program has grown to serve more than 6,000 elder residents annually across diverse neighborhoods, including demonstrated success reaching the city’s Spanish- and Chinese-speaking elders as well as the aging African-American community.
“Cultural sensitivity and adaptive capacity are at the heart of the program’s success,” she said. “We tailor outreach and engagement to variables such as health status, location, language, literacy, values, culture, consumer interests and functional abilities.”
Her most recent innovation with the Wellness Club is a new program that pairs the video game system Kinect for Xbox 360 with evidence-based health education in order to help older adults “play” their way to increased physical activity and social engagement. Inspired by the program’s success, Vázquez will partner with the USC Leonard Davis School’s Kate Wilber, PhD, to conduct further directed research.
Another area Vázquez has been involved in is workforce development and training. As part of this initiative, her team took on a major role in coordinating the Geriatric Social Work Education Consortium (GSWEC), co-founded by Partners in Care Foundation’s CEO, June Simmons.
GSWEC is a unique model of collaboration between schools and agencies and allowed them to begin an internship program whose first intern was—Vázquez noted proudly—a USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology grad student.
“A field placement at Partners in Care or any of the other excellent agencies within GSWEC offers unique hands-on experiences for students planning to go into a range of leadership and professional roles in health and human services,” Vázquez said. “We are committed to educating the geriatric health, human services, social workers and gerontologists of the future.”
As she helps train the next generation of gerontologists and geriatric social workers while pushing herself and her colleagues to continually innovate on behalf of older Angelenos, Vázquez is also continuing her own academic and professional growth.
“I hope to bring my work to publication during my tenure at USC,” she said. “I am grateful and excited to collaborate with the many wonderfully talented and supportive professionals I’ve had the privilege to work with over the years at Partners in Care as well as here at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.”
While many students might consider summer a time to take it easy, USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology PhD candidate Jeff Laguna spent his taking advantage of several prestigious enrichment opportunities.
Over the summer, Laguna received two high-profile awards, the first from the AcademyHealth/Aetna Foundation and the second from The Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology (SMEP).
“It’s a wonderful honor to receive recognition and support from SMEP and AcademyHealth,” Laguna said. “Both opportunities provided by these organizations are uniquely different, yet each further contributes to my development as an academic and as a health services researcher.”
For the first award, Laguna was chosen to be one of 15 national AcademyHealth/Aetna Foundation Minority Scholars who traveled to Orlando to attend the group’s Annual Research Meeting, a string of Methods Workshops and the Disparities Interest Group Annual Meeting.
The latter honor was a fellowship to enable Laguna to attend a quantitative analysis workshop at the Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis at the University of Kansas. It offered him further training in cutting-edge methodology and data analysis while also offering additional support for his research on healthcare disparities and hospice/palliative care.
“I’m excited to apply the skills, experiences and connections gained from these opportunities to my studies at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,” he said. “What I learned this summer has already made a big difference in my research, development and perspective, and for that, I am truly grateful.”
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