Changing Aging Blogs
[Is your blog changing aging? Let us know at changingaging AT gmail DOT com]
- Ageless Marketing
- A Little Red Hen
- Better Than I Ever Expected
- Boomers
- Cab Drollery
- Duplex Planet
- EChronicles
- Ecumen's Changing Aging Blog
- EdlerAbuse.org
- Elder Law Issues
- Elder Storytelling Place
- Embodied Aging
- Global Ageing Network Blog
- Maya's Granny
- O'Folks
- Real Sage Advice
- Remembering Matters
- The Boomer Chronicles
- The Savvy Boomer
- The Story of Stuff
- Time Goes By
- Women's Voices for Change
Politics
- Daily Kos
- Grasping Reality
- The Huffington Post
- Talking Points Memo
- Think Progress
- The Washington Monthly
Media & Culture
- CJR Daily
- FAIR's Media Views
- FuturePundit
- Infomaniac: Behind the News
- Social Media
- Romenesko
- Truemors
Health & Science
News
Changing Aging Books
Search
Recent Posts
- ChangingAging.org Redesign -- Please Bookmark!
- Disaster in Buffalo
- Power Up Friday
- Blanchard WinsDays
- Kevin Frick writes...
- Monkhouse Monday
- Getting Closer!
- Blanchard WinsDays
- Power Up Friday
- My Pick for Health and Human Services
- Understanding Health Care Reform
- Facts Are Stubborn Things: Social Security Edition
- Monkhouse Monday
- Localism is Coming
- Krugman Can't Wait...
Recent Comments
Category Archives
- AGING 100
- Aging
- Culture
- Dementia
- Eden Alternative
- Erickson School
- Green House
- Health Policy
- Longevity
- Media
- Rockets
Monthly Archives
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
Subscribe to this blog's feed
Blog Data
« Proud of Our Son | Main | Home »
June 20, 2008 |Permalink |Comments (0)
Power-Up Friday: Social Capital
Here is your beloved Power Up Friday post...
"The new currency won't be intellectual capital. It will be social capital - the collective value of whom we know and what we'll do for each other. When social connections are strong and numerous, there is more trust, reciprocity, information flow, collective action, happiness, and, by the way, greater wealth."
- James Kouzes
Thanks to Christa's 6/2 post, I've been looking into Dr. Ernst Gehmacher and other writings on social capital. As the quote above suggests, social capital and aging in community will be the touchstones for changing aging in the coming decades. Here are a few things I've learned:
- Pollack and von dem Knesebeck (2004) studied individual social capital in Germany and the US, measured as degree of participation, reciprocity and civic trust. They found that low social capital correlated with low self-reports of health, more depression and functional limitations.
- Nilsson (2006) looked at social capital among 1135 older adults in rural Bangladesh and found that low social capital was a significant predictor of poor quality of life. (It appears that this concept holds across cultures and socioeconomic strata.)
- A soon-to-be-published Harvard study, (Ertel, et al.), shows that increased social interaction slows memory loss in older adults.
As Dawn Carr concluded in a 2005 paper, aging should be viewed for its potential, not as a "problem". Society needs to invest in social capital for all, which means valuing the needs of elders, even though they may no longer be economically productive. Further, we need to recognize what elders can offer society and create opportunities for this reciprocity.
Gehmacher said it best in his position statement for the Club of Rome: A full social and community life is "a fundamental human right".
More on social capital and dementia next week....
-- Al Power