The Power of Our Collective Work
Our efforts and those of our grantees contribute to better care for older adults by focusing on issues and strategies that are of critical importance. In 2020 we made tremendous progress in areas such as dementia care, supporting advocates for policy change and increasing awareness of the role that ageism plays in health care for older adults.
We continuously work across our three priority areas—Age-Friendly Health Systems, Family Caregiving and Serious Illness & End of Life—to increase the collective power of our work and maximize the value of our investments.
In this section:
Addressing Ageism
We challenge the conventional and often incorrect perceptions of aging through the Reframing Aging Initiative—a long-term social-change endeavor designed to improve the public’s understanding of what aging means and the many ways in which older people contribute to society.
Throughout 2020, the initiative hosted webinars with expert presenters to help us eliminate age-related biases and highlight the role age-friendly care can play in this pursuit. The initiative plays an important role in raising awareness of the prevalence of ageism and ways to reimagine how we as a society think about aging. Three of the leading style guides—those of the American Medical Association, the Associated Press and the American Psychological Association—were updated to reflect the principles of Reframing Aging as a result of these efforts.
Supporting Better Dementia Care
Attending to an older adult’s mentation, or cognitive function, is a fundamental principle of our Age-Friendly Health Systems movement and is especially critical for older adults and their families living with all forms of dementia. In 2020 we strengthened our involvement with several initiatives that focus on improving dementia care and supporting the clinicians and caregivers who provide it.
Best Practice Caregiving
Best Practice Caregiving (BPC) is a free online database co-funded by JAHF that helps health care and social service organizations compare and adopt proven programs to support family caregivers of people living with dementia. The resource was launched in 2020 after years of careful development and extensive review of evidence-based programs. Over the course of the year, BPC added new programs to its robust roster and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by highlighting the most relevant programs to meet current needs, including remote programs for caregivers, as well as those that address specific racial and ethnic populations.
Milken Institute’s Alliance to Improve Dementia Care
Our support of the Milken Institute’s Alliance to Improve Dementia Care, launched in 2020, comes at a critical time. The Alliance’s work will help ensure the nation builds a capable workforce and implements comprehensive dementia-care models for older adults living with the disease, a figure that is expected to double by 2040. The Alliance released recommendations in May to build a COVID-19-ready dementia workforce.
COVID-19 and Brain Health on a Global Scale
JAHF President Terry Fulmer serves as a liaison to AARP’s Global Council on Brain Health—an independent collaborative of scientists, health professionals, scholars and policy experts from around the world—as it developed and released recommendations regarding the threat of COVID-19 to older adults’ mentation. She also contributed to the World Health Organization’s issue brief on preventing and managing COVID-19 across long-term care services, which are critical to people living with dementia.
BOLD Public Health Centers of Excellence
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced three recipients of its Building Our Largest Dementia (BOLD) Public Health Centers of Excellence awards. The three featured organizations focus on dementia risk reduction (Alzheimer’s Association), early detection of dementia (NYU School of Medicine) and dementia caregiving (University of Minnesota). Rani Snyder, Vice President of Program at JAHF, serves on the University of Minnesota’s BOLD Executive Committee.
Advancing Policy Change
Creating a policy environment that prioritizes older adults and their care is essential to our progress, particularly during a pandemic that had a disproportionate impact on older adults. We therefore provided general operating support grants to the Center for Medicare Advocacy, Community Catalyst, Justice in Aging and PHI, four advocacy organizations working at the intersection of equity, access to high-quality health care for all older adults and support for family caregivers.
Our funding of the Health and Aging Policy Fellows program has helped support more than 150 academics and clinicians to become leaders in the field of health and aging policy. The newest class of fellows will continue the program’s strong tradition of engaging experts in older adult care at the highest levels of the nation’s policymaking.
Other 2020 Initiatives
Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis
JAHF immediately aligned our work to respond to the crisis
by providing support and flexibility to our grantees, disseminating guidance and tools from trusted sources and offering insight on how nursing homes can best protect residents and staff.
Promoting Equity and Access
We are working to expand equal access to age-friendly care for everyone, regardless of background or ZIP code and will continue to place a concerted focus on reaching communities that historically face inequity in health care access and quality of care.
Other Annual Report Sections
Grants
Our new and existing grants supported critically important work in 2020 to meet urgent needs for older adults.
Financials
Responsiveness and diversity enabled the Foundation’s financials to grow through an economically turbulent time.
2020 Milestones
We made significant progress through a year that required us to adapt quickly to ever-changing circumstances.