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Swinging for the Fences

By Nancy Lundebjerg posted 12-18-2019 05:24 PM

  

This week, a copy of the recently released 7th edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual landed on my desk. Frankly, for the AGS team, it was as if we hit a walk-off home run in the last inning of the World Series. Why were we excited? With this edition of the manual, the APA has included recommendations on bias-free language related to age (see an excerpt here). These recommendations emanate from work begin in 2014 by the Leaders of Aging Organizations (LAO; the AGS is a founding member) and its research partner, the Frameworks Institute. 

These changes follow on changes that the American Medical Association (AMA) made earlier this year in their AMA Manual of Style. Together, these guides are the go-to style guides for most journals worldwide—hence the reference to a walk-off home run. 

We didn’t start with swinging for the fences when the AGS decided that one immediate step we could take following the release of the LAO-FrameWorks Institute Reframing Aging report was to focus on making small changes to the terminology to help our audiences better hear what we have to say. Initially, we focused our efforts at home, publishing an editorial in JAGS (which would soon be followed by editorials in Annals of Long-Term Care, Geriatric Nursing, and the Journal of Gerontological Nursing) announcing changes specific to the journal’s style guide. In a bit of serendipity, that editorial was published online on the same day that several AGS leaders and I attended the Across the Lifespan meeting at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The meeting focused on how research could be more inclusive of all ages. We raised the editorial at that meeting and followed up with specific recommendations to the NIH on language that reflected both the Reframing Aging insights but also our expert leaders thinking that, when research is reported, there should be specific reference to age ranges (which helps to make research more actionable for people whose health changes with age). Our editorial and recommendations were reflected in the meeting report and found their way into government-based platforms like ClinicalTrials.gov. 

Our initial plan had been to work incrementally on achieving language changes by approaching individual journals where we had strong relationships, but—perhaps buoyed by our early success—we decided to swing for the fences and approach the AMA and APA. We still have a lot to do when it comes to implementing all the recommendations from the Reframing Aging Initiative, but I am someone who thinks it's important to celebrate the wins. 

So: A toast to the LAO for conceiving the Reframing Aging project, and to the foundations (AARP, Archstone Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies, Endowment for Health, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The John A. Hartford Foundation, The Retirement Research Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, and The SCAN Foundation) that believed this was important work to undertake. The AGS is looking forward to working with the Gerontological Society of America (GSA, the coordinating center for the next phase of our work) and our funding partners (The John A. Hartford Foundation, Archstone Foundation, the Retirement Research Foundation, and The SCAN Foundation) for the next phase of the Reframing Aging Initiative. 

As we close out 2019, we are #AGSProud of our work on advancing the recommendations of Reframing Aging worldwide.

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