The Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging convened a Hunter-wide symposium to honor Older Americans Month on May 18, 2021. In partnership with Hunter College President Jennifer J. Raab and Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, Brookdale’s executive director, Ruth Finkelstein, moderated the discussion. Harold Holzer, Jonathan F. Fanton Director of Roosevelt House, gave introductory remarks.
Speakers included Mark Brennan-Ing, Brookdale’s director of research and evaluation; Keith Chan, assistant professor at the Silberman School of Social Work; Elizabeth Gross Cohn, associate provost for research for Hunter College and the Rudin Professor and associate dean for research at the Hunter School of Nursing; and christian gonzález-rivera, Brookdale’s director of strategic policy initiatives.
New York City mayoral hopefuls Eric Adams, currently the Brooklyn borough president; Kathryn Garcia, former commissioner of the NYC Department of Sanitation and head of GetFoodNYC; and businessman Ray McGuire participated in the forum on April 14, 2021, which was attended by more than 500 people. Shaun Donovan, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama, and Scott Stringer, current NYC comptroller, joined the panel for part of the duration. The forum covered a wide range of topics, including affordable housing, transportation, internet access, and age discrimination.
Allison Nickerson, executive director of LiveOn NY, gave opening remarks and Jarrett Murphy, editor in chief of City Limits, was the moderator. Other sponsors were AARP New York, Citymeals on Wheels, New York Academy of Medicine, and United Neighborhood Houses.
Brookdale’s director of strategic policy initiatives, christian gonzález-rivera, participated in a virtual panel on March 23, 2021, “The Most Important Story You’re Ignoring: The Aging City,” at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, City University of New York. The panel, moderated by Jarrett Murphy, editor of City Limits, discussed how to report on issues related to older adults as well as important topics in aging for journalists to explore.
Also on the panel were Bobbie Sackman, a member leader with Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and a campaign leader with NY Caring Majority; Katelyn Andrews, the director of public policy at LiveOn NY, a membership organization representing more than 100 community-based organizations that serve older New Yorkers; and Kevin Jones, the associate state director for advocacy at AARP, covering New York City.
Kristof K. P. Vanhoutte of the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT) conversed with Brookdale’s executive director, Ruth Finkelstein, about the social and mental health effects of the coronavirus pandemic on older people. The podcast, released on Nov. 4, 2020, is part of the PICT Voices series, which began in March 2020 to try to make sense of what is happening in the time of COVID-19.
Our nation’s labor force is increasingly dependent on older workers, who will soon represent one-quarter of our labor force. Yet after the last recession, older job seekers had only a 40% chance of finding a job within 18 months. In the third episode of CWI Labs’ Equitable Recovery Series, Ruth Finkelstein and Ramona Schindelheim, editor-in-chief at WorkingNation, discussed how COVID-19 fears and misinformation complicate efforts to include older workers in our recovery, and what employers and policy makers can do to overcome these challenges. (October 2020)
Christian gonzález-rivera, Brookdale’s director of strategic initiatives, participated in a panel discussion on disparities in access to healthcare, as part of the New York State Bar Association Health Law Section Fall Meeting on Oct. 23, 2020. Speaking to an audience of lawyers from across the state, gonzález-rivera detailed the demographic trends over the past two decades that have made New York State’s older adult population the most diverse in the nation.
Joining him on the panel were Violet E. Samuels of Samuels & Associates, PC; Sheila Shea of Mental Hygiene Legal Service; and attorney Geoff Kagan Trenchard. The conversation was moderated by T. Andrew Brown, managing partner, Brown Hutchinson LLP.
Video (discussion begins at approximately 2:35:31)
Geoff Rogers, Brookdale’s director of learning and development, moderated a discussion on Oct. 16, 2020, about the intersection of institutional and structural racism and COVID-19 and the resultant impact. The panelists were the Reverend Dr. Charles Butler of Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, Inc. (HCCI); Lisa Rachmuth of the New York City Elder Abuse Center (NYCEAC) at Weill Cornell Medicine; Prof. Samuel R. Aymer of the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College; and Marie Philip, retired from the NYC Human Resources Administration.
The panelists talked about how institutions and services consciously or unconsciously sustain institutionalized racism. The discussion aimed at developing strategies to disrupt institutional racism to address the inequities in life opportunities, services, and care that it creates.
This conversation is part of a series hosted by the State Society on Aging of New York (SSA). Recordings for the two previous discussions in the series are available on the SSA website.
Brookdale’s director of strategic initiatives, christian gonzález-rivera, and executive director Ruth Finkelstein testified (via Zoom) before the New York City Council Committee on Aging, which held an oversight hearing on Sept. 21, 2020, on the future of the city’s senior centers.
Dr. Mark Brennan-Ing, director of research and evaluation at Brookdale, presented on social isolation and mental health and the potential impacts of COVID-19 as part of a national webinar hosted by GMHC on Sept. 17, 2020. The webinar was organized to provide older adults with HIV, including long-term survivors, the information they need about aging with HIV in the time of COVID-19. Keynote speakers included Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, and Ronald Johnson, senior policy fellow, AIDS United.
Mark Brennan-Ing, senior research scientist at Brookdale, joined Nathaniel Currie and Lillibeth González in a webinar moderated by Anthony Anderson, “Combating Trauma in a Time of Isolation.” The webinar, hosted by the NMAC 50+ Scholars Program on June 18, 2020, focused on older adults who may be reliving trauma from the AIDS epidemic.
Dr. Brennan-Ing spoke about their research into the relationship between trauma and HIV, including childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and all panelists discussed healthy approaches to coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a one-hour public program (via Zoom) in the Hunter@Home series on April 20, 2020, Lessons on Pandemic and Age, Christian González-Rivera, director of strategic policy initiatives, moderated a discussion on the challenges of COVID-19 for older adults, as well as potential opportunities. Joining him were executive director Ruth Finkelstein and Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, co-chair of the President’s Brookdale Advisory Board and senior adviser to Hunter College President Jennifer Raab.
The panel spoke about the importance of living conditions and the difficulty of self-isolating in a crowded apartment, as well as the resilience often found among older adults, which was in evidence after Hurricane Sandy. The technology on which we’re now reliant, Dr. Finkelstein pointed out, could be used to open up senior services, make them less age-segregated, and provide better access to the city and its educational institutions.
Dr. Ruth Finkelstein, executive director of the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging, appeared in a PBS NewsHour segment on Nov. 14, 2019, on employers adapting to the needs of an aging workforce. The story is part of “Making Sen$e,” a series with Paul Solman. Dr. Finkelstein talked about age-smart employers and the value of older workers’ experience.
In partnership with the New York State Division of Human Rights, Brookdale offered a half-day discussion on workplace ageism and age discrimination on May 17, 2019. Dr. Ruth Finkelstein and Angela Fernandez, acting commissioner of the State Division of Human Rights, made introductory remarks. Speakers from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the State Division of Human Rights, and the New York City Division of Human Rights discussed age discrimination protections offered by federal, state, and city statutes for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit. Other speakers included Alice Fisher of the Radical Age Movement; Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism; Susan Collins of the Transition Network; and Rocky Chin of AARP.
A roundtable, hosted by New York State Senator Liz Krueger in May 2019, addressed the challenges that older workers face in the hiring process and on the job. Christian González-Rivera, now Brookdale’s director of strategic policy initiatives, was among the panel of experts on age discrimination in the workplace from across disciplines. The panel also discussed what the private sector and government can do to encourage employers to hire and retain older workers and support a multigenerational workforce.
Social scientists are using the theory of cumulative disadvantage to help understand aging over the life course. Cumulative disadvantage looks at “functionality” over a person’s life. People who experience cumulative disadvantage face greater inequalities over their lifetimes. If we look at aging as full of both opportunity and challenge, we can start to understand how and when to intervene to help people age into better lives. Cumulative disadvantage is a call to action at all levels. People need decent housing, food, and access to medical care, but they also need a purpose in life. Communities need to advocate for what they need for their members to age well. Governments and service sectors need to support aging at the community level.
In this video, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, the former New York City commissioner of the Department for the Aging, talks with Dr. Ruth Finkelstein about cumulative disadvantage.
Dr. Ruth Finkelstein, executive director of the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging, spoke at the NYU Aging Incubator Speaker Series on February 12, 2019. Dr. Ernest Gonzales of New York University School of Social Work moderated the presentation, which focused on the cumulative effects of advantage and disadvantage over the life course.
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Dr. Ruth Finkelstein, executive director of the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging, talked with journalist and author John Leland on May 16, 2018. Jennifer J. Raab, president of Hunter College, introduced the conversation at Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute.
