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NIH “Inclusion Across the Lifespan” Report Published with Insights from AGS

By Nancy Lundebjerg posted 02-08-2018 02:37 PM

  

Last June, I had an opportunity to participate in the “Inclusion Across the Lifespan” workshop (Lifespan Workshop) that was held on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda, MD. For the past several years, I’ve been joining the AGS Research Committee delegation for its annual meeting with Drs. Hodes and Bernard and the many other NIA program staff that champion aging research across the NIH. Like those meetings, walking on the NIH campus reminded me of the important role that NIA has played in building the evidence base for geriatrics and improving how we care for older people. 

I am delighted that the Lifespan Workshop led to a revision in the NIH inclusion policy.

Specifically, commencing in early 2019, according to the revised policy, NIH will be requiring that individuals of all ages be included in clinical research unless there is a strong justification for their exclusion. Of note, AGS was able to successfully advocate that there be no upper age limit in a letter that was sent to NIH in response to a request for information (RFI) that followed the June Lifespan Workshop.  

In our letter, AGS also suggested that NIH consider recommendations from the Reframing Aging Project that had been conducted under the auspices of the Leaders of Aging Organizations (AGS is a member) by the FrameWorks Institute. This suggestion built on comments that I had made during the workshop and cited our recent editorial in JAGS about the Journal’s integration of recommendations on language that shouldn’t be used into its style guide. We were pleased to see that this proposal was carried forward into the final summary report of the workshop.

My personal thanks to the NIH staff who put together an informative agenda that set the stage for the rich work group discussions that lead to a number of recommendations that will be important to consider as this new policy is implemented. We will be working with the AGS Research Committee to identify ways in which AGS could be supportive of implementing the policy and this will be a topic of discussion at our upcoming annual meeting with NIA staff in March.

As always, we are grateful to the AGS leaders and members who collaborated with us on developing the response to the RFI:  Heather Allore, PhD, Ellen Binder, MD, Cynthia Boyd, MD, MPH, AGSF, Julie Bynum, MD, MPH, Cathleen Colon-Emeric, MD, MHSc, AGSF, William Dale, MD, PhD, Jerry Gurwitz, MD, AGSF, and Camille Vaughan, MD, MS. We could not do what we do without you!

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