More than 90% of caregivers are also financial caregivers, defined as either contributing direct financial support or coordinating some or all their loved one’s money-related matters. Managing someone’s finances is complex and can extend for months or even years, both during the care recipient’s life and often well beyond the death of a loved one. Longer life spans and lifestyle changes create an urgency to plan for caregiving costs across life stages, not just in middle age. Attention to financial caregiving, when coupled with financial and longevity literacy, can help optimize retirement readiness. This podcast episode provides helpful actions that families, employers, and communities can take to help address this critical need. 

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This podcast episode is supported by TIAA Institute. 

The social determinants of health —and how they influence the health, wealth, and social trajectories of people in the times and places in which they live and work — are the focus of a new report published by the Gerontological Society of America with support from the Bank of America. Through sidebars illustrating innovations by employers, the report demonstrates the important role companies play in optimizing the social determinants of health for employees and families, their customers, and the communities they serve.

This report was developed by the Gerontological Society of America and supported by Bank of America.

This report seeks to explore these changing times through the lens of “Longevity Fitness”—a term that describes how people can thrive, not just survive, throughout increasingly long lifespans by achieving social, health, and wealth equity. This concept was developed in a GSA report, Longevity Fitness: Financial and Health Dimensions Across the Life Course. 

Supported by Bank of America.

When it comes to optimizing Longevity Fitness through attention to health, wealth, and social aspects of life, many Americans face intractable inequities based on the color of their skin, where they live, their sex, and who they love. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of such demographics in the cold hard realities of caseloads and mortality rates. This Momentum Discussion—based on the third in a series of GSA/Bank of America reports on people’s increasingly long lives—documents the effects of these inequities and explores the beneficial efforts of corporations and other employers to enhance diversity and inclusion. 

Supported by Bank of America.

“Longevity Fitness” is the term used in the GSA report, "Longevity Fitness: Financial and Health Dimensions Across the Life Course" describing how people can thrive by matching their Health Spans, Wealth Spans, and Life Spans as they enjoy increasingly long lives. Transitions commonly associated with advancing age—work disruptions, physical decline, dementia—can be better managed when a person has planned for the social support, financial means, and health resources needed to compensate for aging-related physical and cognitive changes. As people age, chronic diseases accumulate and reduce the ability to carry out the necessary activities of daily life. When a person also is lacking in social support, financial resources, or access to health care, the result of declining functional ability is a downward and potentially irreversible spiral. Insecurities in life—including uncertainty about food, housing, transportation, health care, or safety—exacerbate this situation, leading people to live in isolation or poverty and to be unable to seek the interventions they need for maintaining health and ultimately their ability to take care of themselves. In this webinar, experts in the field will exchange ideas about the concept of Longevity Fitness and insights into positive aging across the life course. 

Webinar Handout

Supported by Bank of America.

This report seeks to focus on ways to support Americans as a newly recognized Longevity Economy becomes an increasingly important part of this nation’s economic activity and overall fiscal health at the local, regional, and national levels. By convening a workgroup of experts in this field, The Gerontological Society of America and Bank of America Merrill Lynch seek to concentrate on innovation and creative strategies. Small changes can make a big difference in the lives of older Americans as well as the economic health of the nation, and multiple levers can be used to effect positive change in the Longevity Economy. 

Support provided by Bank of America.

This report seeks to focus on ways to support Americans as a newly recognized Longevity Economy becomes an increasingly important part of this nation’s economic activity and overall fiscal health at the local, regional, and national levels. By convening a workgroup of experts in this field, The Gerontological Society of America and Bank of America Merrill Lynch seek to concentrate on innovation and creative strategies. Small changes can make a big difference in the lives of older Americans as well as the economic health of the nation, and multiple levers can be used to effect positive change in the Longevity  Economy. 

Support provided by Bank of America.

This segment originally aired May 17, 2018, on Sirius XM Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. The report he mentions in the interview, "Longevity Economics: Leveraging the Advantages of an Aging Society," can be downloaded here. Learn more about Business Radio at https://businessradio.wharton.upenn.edu.

Video of May 10, 2018, Capitol Hill briefing, featuring:
Introducing GSA’s longevity economics report (James Appleby, CEO of The Gerontological Society of America)
Longevity economics report overview (Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management at University of Pennsylvania)
Financial sector perspective (Kevin Crain, Head of Enterprise Financial Solutions for Bank of America Merrill Lynch)
U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging special guest (Sarah A. Khasawinah).

In this report, The Hidden Financial Dimensions of Cognitive Decline and Caregiving, the literature on age- and disease-related cognitive decline is reviewed through the lens of the socio-ecological model (individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy levels). Topics include the science of cognitive function, what happens when mental abilities decline, actions for preventing or slowing mental decline, and ways that individuals, families, employers, financial and legal advisors, organizations and institutions, communities, and policymakers can plan for the hidden financial impact of an increasing prevalence of ADRD. Vignettes are used to illustrate challenges and options at each level of the socioecological framework. Support provided by Bank of America.