The COVID-19 health crisis presents significant opportunities to radically improve quality of life and meet person- and family-centered needs.
Nearly 8 months into the coronavirus pandemic, Gretchen Alkema, vice president of policy and communications at The SCAN Foundation, reminds readers of Public Policy & Aging Report that the “biological, psychological, and social/economic factors of the COVID-19 crisis will have lasting impacts at both the individual and population levels.”
The pandemic represents a blending of danger and opportunity, Alkema writes. We’ve been living with the danger, which is illustrated by infection rates, mortality statistics, social unrest, economic output, human isolation, social and economic disengagement, and fear of the future.
But the COVID-19 health crisis also presents us with “significant opportunities to drive change in all aspects of the aging trajectory to radically improve quality of life and meet person- and family-centered needs,” writes Alkema.
Drawing on lessons learned during the pandemic, Alkema explores 5 actions that the U.S. president could take to drive change between 2021 and 2024:
- Establish federal leadership: Appoint a White House-level leader on aging who will build solutions for aging Americans across all domestic policy areas.
- Encourage state leadership: Call on each governor to develop a thoughtful, comprehensive, and outcomes-oriented Master Plan for Aging.
- Build local supports: Pave the way for affordable, meaningful, and life-supporting access to food, housing, and high-speed Internet in every populated zip code.
- Promote health security: Amplify value-based care delivery and payment so health care focuses on outcomes that maximize individual and societal wellness and equity.
- Ensure economic security: Endorse employment security for working family caregivers, so they can care for loved ones with complex care needs without eroding their own future economic security.