For journalists on the health beat, complicated topics like Medicare, nursing homes, and end-of-life decision-making increasingly get front-page attention thanks to the massive waves of Baby Boomers turning 65 every day, implementation of the controversial Affordable Care Act, and the enormous health care-related financial pressures faced by families and the nation. Adding “Aging” as its second Core Curriculum topic, the Association of Health Care Journalists (with support from the Hartford Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund), has created a new web resource to help journalists understand and better report on what the association calls the “most significant demographic trend of our time.”

Getting more and better media coverage of aging and health issues is a long-standing aim of the John A. Hartford Foundation. Although it seems to be getting easier, we still compete for airtime in the general press with kids, kittens, the Kardashians, and other, splashier or sexier “news” (not to say there’s anything wrong with indulging in some tabloid fare, just check my web browser history). Our point is, we believe informed public dialogue to be essential in meeting our goal of improving the health of older adults; we need to shine a light on the problems in our system and trumpet the work of our grantees and others who are making improvements. To accomplish this, we partner with Strategic Communications & Planning to train our grantees in messaging and working with the media. To further help grantees talk about and gain support for their work, we’ve developed a free online communications resource with photos and how-to guides (bandwidthonline.org). Of course, SCP also helps us organize this Health AGEnda blog, where we hope to engage a diverse audience in public conversations that allow all of us to contribute to creating a higher-quality, higher-value health care system that will benefit not only older adults today, but those of us lucky enough to be the older adults of tomorrow.

We are pleased to offer modest support to the Association of Health Care Journalists to create their new web resource on aging, which contains key concept overviews, tip sheets, data resources, and a forum for sharing wisdom among its members. Judith Graham, veteran health reporter who spent many years at the Chicago Tribune serves as the Association’s aging content topic leader and Covering Health blog contributor. She and the Association will be adding stories, links, and resource material weekly.

In addition to supporting the online aging resources, Hartford will once again attend the Association’s annual conference, featuring keynotes from former President and first lady Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and David Satcher, previously head of the CDC and the 16th U.S. Surgeon General. The conference provides a venue for journalists to deepen their health care knowledge and discuss the state of their field, which has experienced turbulent shifts in recent years. News organizations, facing budget and market pressures, have downsized in a number of ways, including shedding specialized health reporters from their ranks. Still, whether as freelancers or news agency staff, the Association’s more than 1,000 members have the expert knowledge and media outlets to help the public understand and appreciate the enormous challenges and opportunities in health care, and they remain well-connected to other journalists in the field. We will once again meet with these Association reporters and point them to our grantees and others who are improving the way health care professionals are trained and the way health care is delivered to meet the needs of older adults. Now, through their new Aging Core Curriculum, these members of the fourth estate will have an added resource to help them become even more expert.