One of the highlights of my career has been the opportunity to serve for 2 decades on the Editorial Advisory Board of Generations, the quarterly journal of the American Society on Aging—both as its chair and as a guest editor for three issues. Each issue of Generations is devoted to bringing together the most useful and current knowledge about a specific topic in the field of aging, with emphasis on practice, research, and policy.
I have always loved this topically based journal, and so when the current editor, Alison Biggar, and ASA President and CEO Leanne Clark- Shirley, asked me to help celebrate ASA’s 70th birthday by looking back at Generations, I jumped at the chance. They asked me to pick one of my favorite issues, but with so many choices I had to pick three (presented in chronological order).
The issues, from three eras, represent all that is great about Generations. One of the greatest things is that Generations has always been able to recruit outstanding guest editors and authors who are excited about writing for the ASA audience.
The Nursing Home Revisited (Winter 1995–1996; Vol. 19, No. 4). This issue on the nursing home is my first selection. It was put together in the mid-1990s and edited by the noted public health gerontologist Terrie Wetle. The issue recognized and acknowledged that we had not solved the challenges of providing high-quality nursing home care in the United States.
A powerful beginning was an article from Bruce Vladeck, then director of what at the time was called the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)—which does sound a little better—reflecting on his landmark book Unloving Care: The Nursing Home Tragedy (Basic Books, 1980), which had been written 15 years earlier. After an appointment as the head of the U.S. government agency in charge of funding and regulating nursing homes, he found that the critical view was actually quite different.
‘The articles in this issue are timeless and after 20 years they still hold tremendous meaning.’
This issue of Generations, even though it came out almost 30 years ago, included topics that to this day remain at the forefront of nursing home policy, including nursing home design, specialized facilities, integration with healthcare, mental health issues, resident assessment and the Minimum Data Set, the importance of nursing home consumers and self-determination, and a question about whether nursing homes needed to be completely restructured. The issue included articles by scholars and administrators in long-term services, many of whom remain top researchers and some who have, unfortunately, left us. The shelf-life of this issue is long, and I ask my students who are interested in long-term services to go back to it as an introduction to the field.
Listening to Older People’s Stories (Fall 2003, Vol. 27, No. 3). Moving into the early 2000s, this issue, my second selection, reinforces another major strength of Generations—helping us to really hear the voices of older people in the pages of the journal. Again, an all-star lineup, led this time by Anne Wyatt-Brown, focused Generations readers on how to listen to the stories of older people. Two icons of this work, Robert Kastenbaum and Jaber Gubrium, told us about the process and importance of hearing good stories.
The issue also allows us to hear the voices of centenarians, of individuals experiencing dementia, and of patients rehabilitating from a stroke, and demonstrates how listening to stories can help physicians to better understand and improve medical diagnosis. I always thought this edition was so important because it served to ground us in why we do the work that we do as practitioners, administrators, and researchers. As was the case for my earlier pick, the articles in this issue are timeless and after 20 years they still hold tremendous meaning and impact.
Politics and Aging (Winter 2018–2019, Vol. 42, No. 4). This issue, my third selection, is from the modern era. Edited by two friends and colleagues, Rob Hudson and Robyn Stone, the issue demonstrates yet another strength of Generations—a firm grounding in social policy made accessible to ASA readers. Hudson, an academic, who, sadly, we recently lost, and Stone, a researcher and policy maker, bring a perspective to that turbulent time that is truly insightful.
Contributions from some of the top analysts of aging policy in the nation take on the critical issues of today, such as state and federal divisions on aging politics, immigration and workforce, the role of women in politics and policy, inequality, and the politics of diversity. As we look at the aging policy debates of today, the topics and discussion of this 2018/2019 issue read as if they were written yesterday. I often used this issue of Generations as a teaching tool, and students find the articles to be informative, understandable, and relevant.
Many changes have occurred at ASA, and in Generations, over the years. The long-time and fabulous editor Mary Johnson retired. The journal covers, which had been carefully modernized over the decades and featured the acclaimed photography of the late Marianne Gontarz, no longer matter in the digital world.
But what has not changed is that Generations, as a topically based journal, written by top practitioners, policy makers, and researchers for an audience of ASA members—who work every day to make the lives of older people better—continues. Here’s to the next 70 years!
Robert Applebaum, PhD, is director of the Ohio Long-Term Care Research Project and Senior Research Scholar at the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Photo credit: one photo
