2012 ANNUAL REPORT

Aging and Health (1982-present)

For the second funding area, Aging and Health, the Trustees and staff looked to the future and discovered a looming but largely unacknowledged problem of profound significance—the rapidly growing population of older adults.

Seeing the coming “demographic imperative,” in 1982 the Foundation launched its Aging and Health program—its current and only focus.

“In 1982, the Trustees and program staff undertook a strategic planning process in which the program staff suggested we look at the demographic imperative,” says Norman H. Volk, a Trustee of the Hartford Foundation at the time and now Chairman. Longer life expectancies and the huge increase in births after World War II (the “baby boomers”) would dramatically increase the number of adults over age 65. The number of people age 85 and older was projected to grow even faster.

While longer lives would allow Americans to enjoy more time and freedom than ever, maintaining their independence would require them to rely more and more on adequate care for increasingly complex health and social needs. The Trustees and program staff recognized that these trends would have profound implications for the country and its unprepared health care system.

The Unique Needs of Older Adults
Older adults are not simply older versions of young adults. They have unique and often complex needs related to the physiological, psychological, cultural, and social factors involved in aging. Many health issues that appear rarely in younger adults become common with age. Vision and hearing loss, arthritis, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cognitive impairment are just a few of many examples. Furthermore, these conditions often occur in combination. Older adults are far more likely than younger people to have multiple chronic illnesses, take several medications, and require assistance with activities of daily living. Per capita, older adults utilize more health care services than any other age group.

While modern health care offers the promise of allowing older people to control and cope with these conditions while preserving quality of life, all too often the health care system and providers fail to deliver on that promise. Health care typically focuses on treatment of individual diseases, which means that older adults with multiple health conditions often see several specialists in different settings—and as a result receive care that is neither coordinated, comprehensive, nor centered on their individual needs.