Maxwell School News and Commentary

“Among older people there is a reluctance to project negativity into their future,” says Merril Silverstein, professor and chair of sociology. “There’s research that they tend to put on rose-colored glasses about things like their own aging trajectory so it’s keeping up their ego integrity to want to be independent and stay in their home.”

"Becoming sandwiched in later life: Consequences for individuals’ well-being and variation across welfare regimes," co-authored by Professor and Chair of Sociology Merril Silverstein, was published in The Journals of Gerontology.

“Unfortunately,” says Colleen Heflin, professor and chair of public administration and international affairs, “my own work suggests that cognitive decline can act as a barrier to SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] participation among older adults eligible for the program, due to the difficult administrative processes associated with demonstrating program eligibility.”

“The lack of access to food can make older Americans more socially isolated,” says Colleen Heflin, professor and chair of public administration and international affairs.

"Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation and Medication Adherence Among Medicaid-Insured Older Adults Living with Hypertension," co-authored by Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs, was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

"Screening for food insecurity can at least provide the clinician some sense of the risks their patients might be facing and their potential negative health consequences," says Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs.

This study, co-authored by Professor of Sociology Janet Wilmoth and published in the International journal of Aging and Human Development, investigates adult children's informal caregiving for, and living arrangements with, older parents in urban India.

Professor Gary Engelhardt's research on the impact the aging and eventual death of baby boomers may have on future demand and the supply of homes listed for sale by older Americans (ages 50 and older) was featured in the Mortgage Orb article, "RIHA Studies Impact of Aging Baby Boomer Homeowners on Housing Supply."

Faculty members Robert Rubinstein and Sandra Lane are among the co-editors and contributors to this handbook, which investigates the social contexts of health—including food and nutrition, race, class, ethnicity, trauma, gender, mental illness and the environment—to explain the complicated nature of illness.