Ageism may be contributing to declining health in people of late middle age, it was claimed today.
A major study of people over the age of 50 found that 25% claimed they had been victims of ageist practices.
Researchers, reported in The Lancet Public Health, said these claims were closely linked to poor health.
The research, conducted by University College London, involved some 7,731 people. The researchers found that 29% of those who reported suffering from age discrimination rated their health as poor or "fair" compared with 24% who had not experienced the problem.
However about 45% of those reporting age discrimination also reported facing other forms of discrimination, such as those based on sex or physical disability.
Researcher Dr Sarah Jackson said: “As a society, we need to increase public awareness of what constitutes ageism and how it can affect health and wellbeing so we can build collective movements, like those that brought about legislative and social change for other forms of discrimination.
"On a clinical level, raising the issue of age discrimination with older patients could help to identify those at risk of future health problems.”
Writing for the journal, Professor Martin Gulliford, of King’s College, London, says: “The public health community has been slow to acknowledge the central role of discrimination in health inequality.
"Although the interrelationships between age, socioeconomic status, health status and experienced discrimination are complex, these findings suggest that not only does age discrimination cause short-term psychological distress to older people – but could also have an important effect on their long-term mental and physical health.”
Associations between age discrimination and health and wellbeing: cross-sectional and prospective analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Lancet Public Health 3 April 2019
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(19)30035-0/fulltext
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