International Longevity Centre Global Alliance - a multinational consortium consisting of member organizations.

30th August 2024

The New Zealand Association of Gerontology (NZAG) organising committee was pleased to invite attendees to the NZAG 2024 conference, which was held from 28th to 30th August, 2024 in Wellington, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University.

The conference aimed to celebrate older people and their essential contributions to society, address ageism upfront, and provide new thinking, methods, research, and education. The content and activities aligned with promoting value to the lives of older people, their whānau and families, carers, artists and designers, health professionals, health and regional planners, private and public providers, and society.

Emeritus Professor Julie Byles, Head of ILC Australia, attended the NZAG conference which brought together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, health promoters, artists, creative industries, designers, stakeholders, and older people themselves to rethink ageing. Attendees were inspired by local and international presentations, contributed to high-quality discussions, and engaged with cutting-edge research.

Navigating Ageing

The conference theme was Navigating Ageing, a reference perhaps to New Zealand’s important place in the Pacific and its seafaring peoples, but also to the path of life. The conference was pitched to celebrate older people and included performances by poets, musicians and artists. The meeting was also designed to confront ageism and provide new thinking about ageing, as well as explore new methods for research and education. The lives and values of Maori people and their families and communities are central to the conference, recognising the importance of cultural values and attachments in all aspects of life, including ageing and care for older people.

Julie was invited as a keynote speaker. She spoke about older women’s health and the impact of chronic conditions in older age, reflecting on the findings of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH). In doing so, she also illustrated the role of longitudinal studies in providing evidence and information for understanding ageing, identifying opportunities for prevention and forming policy responses.

The 12432 older women (born 1921-26) who originally joined the ALSWH in 1996 have provided millions of points of data through repeated surveys, free-text comments, and linked data. 101 of the women are still alive and participating in surveys. On their latest surveys, these women rate their health as good or very good, although somewhat worse than a year ago. they are limited a lot in most activities, although most can still get around and bathe and dress themselves. They mostly still live alone. Many can prepare meals and feed themselves, but need help with shopping.

The journey of the women, from their 70s, depicts the various pathways through later life, and provides evidence for the WHO’s hypothesised trajectories of healthy ageing, with some maintaining high levels of functional ability and some steeper trajectories of decline. The difference in the observed data is that the pathways have different intercepts as well as different slopes. This observation underscores the importance of socio-economic advantage and health advantage in enabling health in later life. Overall, 12% of the women in ALSWH remained on the trajectory of maintaining high physical, mental and social functioning right through to very old ages. This trajectory was distinguished by better education, easier to manage on income, healthy BMI, not smoking, exercise and fewer chronic conditions in later life.

One of the other key lessons from the women was the importance of prevention in later life, both in terms of preventing and managing chronic conditions, but also in maintaining functional abilities and getting help to keep doing what matters.

The theme of longitudinal studies continued throughout the conference. Julie was honoured to be a discussant in a symposium presented by the Healthy Ageing Research Team at Massey University, on the New Zealand Health, Work and Retirement Study (NZHWR). This study has been running since 2006 and is the longest-running longitudinal study of ageing in Aotearoa New Zealand.

A video promo for Julie’s presentation is available here.

https://www.nzag2024.ac.nz/speaker/