Aging Institute turns 30

An expert on healthy aging, Carol Ryff knows that the UW–Madison Institute on Aging (IOA) -turning 30 years old this month – has aged well.

“A very important aspect of aging well, whether a person or an institute, is to continue growing, developing and experiencing,” says Ryff, a UW–Madison psychology professor and director of IOA. “It’s to thrive and take on new challenges, and not hold steady at a plateau.”

Over the years, this is exactly what IOA has done. Its original mission has expanded from one based on community service into one that emphasizes interdisciplinary research and training that could lead to a more complete and tailored understanding of how individuals age.

With U.S. Census data predicting that people age 65 or older will soon make up 20 percent of the population, compared to just 4 percent in 1900, Ryff says this understanding will help practitioners better address the social, psychological and physical challenges faced by older adults.

Born in 1973, IOA – first named the Faye McBeath Institute on Aging and Adult Life – was conceived by the growing interest in gerontology among campus scholars and by the growing needs of an aging population. In its early years, the institute was parented by the School of Social Work, and its focus was primarily on serving the needs of older people in the community.

“The original aims were largely applied,” says Ryff.

When the Graduate School assumed administrative oversight in 1980, the institute’s mission shifted toward research, rooted mainly in the behavioral and social sciences. But in 1989, when IOA was adopted by a second new parent, the UW Medical School, the institute’s research budded into new disciplines, including the biomedical sciences.

Bringing the research interests of the two schools together enabled the institute to investigate the intricacies of the aging process.

“Aging well is about more than taking prescriptions. At the same time, it is also about more than having a good attitude, a large income or even good genes,” explains Ryff. “There are many and varied influences on the ways in which people grow old. Social, psychological and biological factors all play a role. To understand the aging process, we must embrace all the complexity that it entails.”

This integrative approach, explains the IOA director, requires researchers to do more than identify separate factors involved in the aging process. It demands developing new knowledge about how these factors come together and interact to determine why some people age well and others age poorly.

“Until about eight years ago, the social scientists at the institute were working independently, running on separate tracks, from the biomedical scientists,” says Ryff. “Either group left unto itself paints an incomplete picture of how aging will unfold. Moreover, it is difficult to treat or prevent age-related problems if we fail to understand how psychological and biomedical factors are interrelated.”

Since 1995, when Ryff became IOA director, the institute has worked to bring together more than 100 faculty members from 45 academic departments to probe research on the boundaries of diverse fields.

“The goal of this integrated work is to identify pathways to particular health outcomes. It’s a different kind of knowledge that, in the long run, can lead to more tailored health practices for promoting successful aging,” says Ryff.

Two key IOA projects exemplify this new multidisciplinary approach:

* The Mind-Body Center, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, strives to understand how life challenges in work and family, as well as the psychological factors surrounding them, influence biological processes, such as neural circuitry, stress hormones and immune function.

* MIDUS II (“Midlife in the U.S.), a $26 million, six-year, multi-institutional project led by UW–Madison, will follow the behavioral, sociological, psychological and biological well-being of more than 7,000 people between the ages of 35 and 85 living throughout the United States. The project is one of the largest and most multidisciplinary studies ever funded by the National Institute of Aging and one of the first to link psychosocial and behavioral factors to a wide array of biological factors implicated in health outcomes.

“These projects represent a new era for research that puts social and biomedical sciences together,” says Ryff. “I’m proud to say we are leading the country in this kind of integrated work.”

As the institute continues on its own path to aging well, she adds, “We want to reach a more genuine understanding of this complex process. We want to be an institute that always reaches for new heights.”

To celebrate its birthday, IOA is hosting a symposium, including special lectures on aspects of aging and a health fair with information on later-life problems, positive health promotion and health assessment on Thursday, Oct. 23, and Friday, Oct. 24. For more information, call (608) 262-1818.