pointing in the direction of essential interdisciplinary researchneither center has, as yet, given much attention to the cultural, economic, and social factors in aging. The Department of Agriculture has a program of research on nutrition, clothing, home design, and facilities in which it gives special attention to the needs of aged and handicapped women. Through its own studies and through grants to land-grant colleges and universities, it is supporting some studies on the financial circumstances of older people, adjustments in retirement, and the adequacy of public services in rural areas. The Department of Labor makes continuing or periodic studies of older worker employment, effects of technological change, pension agreements, and costs of living. Several years ago it conducted a study on the performance of older workers and another on the experience of older workers in public employment offices. At the close of the past year (November 1960), it published a new budget for elderly couples which was priced in 20 large cities, but in no small cities or in rural areas.o The number of patients 65 and over in Veterans' Administration facilities has increased tenfold over the past 18 years. By 1965, 40 percent of the VA patient load will be in this age group. 10 VA hospital and domiciliary facilities will be overwhelmed unless research on chronic disease leads to the prevention or cure of a good many cases and unless social research leads to discovery of ways in which handicapped older veterans can continue to live independently in the community. The Veterans' Administration currently has a number of research projects on aging underway within its facilities. Many Federal agencies collect and publish statistics related to the older population. These include the Bureau of the Census, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Labor, the Veterans' Administration, the National Office of Vital Statistics, and the Public Health Service through its increasingly useful national health survey. Both the Bureau of Public Assistance and the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance make periodic studies of the characteristics and circumstances of samples of their older beneficiaries. sons. The subcommittee's overall appraisal of Federal research activity in aging is that there is increasing interest in the field but that it is far from keeping pace with the increasing size and problems of older perThe subcommittee is concerned about the lack of any overall stimulating and coordinating agency within the Government to assess research needs and progress, identify gaps, and develop recommendations for further advances. It feels there is definite need to earmark funds for research, and for the training of research workers and university faculty in aging. It believes that the lack of recognition of the need for research on the economic, social, and welfare aspects of the field should be corrected. Privately financed research The past decade has seen some increase in the amount of research on aging supported by private funds, mainly from foundations (such as the National Cancer Society) with some interest being shown by a few of the more general foundations. Most of this research is being done in hospital laboratories and universities. "The BLS Interim Budget for a Retired Couple," Monthly Labor Review, November 1960. 10 Programs for Older People, ibid., p. 60. It is only comparatively recently that the noncategorical foundations have begun to support research in the economic and social aspects of aging. And most of this focuses on immediate problems and social welfare rather than on basic research essential to the accumulation of fundamental knowledge and understanding. Moreover, researchers report a number of limitations in working with funds from private sources. It is said to be rare that "private foundations give anything but year-to-year grants and this makes it difficult to plan a long-term study." "1 Comments on privately financed research in the field of aging which were submitted to the subcommittee indicate that such research today is similar in many respects to research in the health fields during the thirties and early forties. Illustrative of this are the following: Foundation support has tended to be somewhat erratic and almost whimsical. *** My impression is that the foundations have tended to support "safe" projects which will maximize a positive public image of the foundation's interest in urgent social problems.-Dr. Gordon F. Streib. Private foundations are impatient for results.-Dr. Otto Pollack. Longitudinal studies covering long periods of time are essential in aging research. These kinds of studies can rarely be supported by private foundations, even though they are of great importance.-Dr. K. Warner Schaie. Other comments point to the necessity for Government leadership in recognizing and supporting research in gerontology and in the problems of aging. The following comments are illustrative of the belief that public support is essential to large-scale development of the field. The great achievements of medical research in the last Since, in my opinion, the Nation's brainpower is one of its State and local interest in research The reports and recommendations of the State Governors conferences held during the past year as a prelude to the January 1961 White House Conference on Aging have afforded information on the status of research in gerontology in the States. Many of the States have made reports very similar to these comments from Kansas: The amount of research on aging (social science and psychology) which has been completed in Kansas is minimal. 11 Dr. Geoffrey H. Bourne, Division of Basic Health Sciences, Emory University (Atlanta, Ga.), reply to question 6. The obvious reason for this condition is the relative newness The Alabama report on social and psychological research in gerontology stated that "according to the subcommittee on research, the colleges and universities of the State report almost no research at the present time on problems of the aging and aged." One medical research project was reported.1 13 From Illinois came the observation that "Federal and State Governments and private sources of financing will have to be educated to the necessity of financing longitudinal studies if we are to attain some of the goals in research on aging." The special problems are that Illinois shares with the rest of the Nation a need for more competent persons in the field of research and the funds to enable them to do a productive research job. The interest in research is growing, and while much has been done, there is still much to do. Long-term research projects are needed, and while they are expensive, we need consider this expense in contrast with the cost of the sums of money put into the support of older people. If we can, through research, make substantial savings by keeping a substantial number of older persons ambulatory and on a self-help basis rather than invalids, then, in the long run the expensive way may be the cheaper.14 More than 5 years ago the Council of State Governments published a summary of recommendations made by State study groups that had examined the research needs of gerontology. These recommendations included Basic research.-Research on the biological, economic, and social aspects of aging needs to be increased and intensified by grants from Federal agencies and private foundations and appropriations from the States. 15 Financial support for research.-A national foundation on problems of the aging should be established to plan and support a comprehensive program for research and to support demonstration projects for the welfare of the older persons. When the recommendations to the White House Conference on Aging from all of the States were summarized, virtually unanimous opinion was found that there is urgent need for research on all aspects of aging; that personnel trained for research in aging and research facilities should be increased as rapidly as possible; and that both Federal and State Governments have a clear responsibility to support all of these activities. 12 "Kansas Recommendations on Aging," prepared by the Kansas State Interdepartmental Committee on Aging, p. 33. 13 Alabama Preliminary Report on Recommendations to the 1961 White House Conference on Aging," June 1960, pp. 25-26. 14 Illinois Advisory Council on the Improvement of the Economic and Social Status of Older People, "Recommendations and Summaries of Reports," September 1960, p. 31. 1 "The States and Their Older Citizens," op. cit., p. 95. The imbalance between social science and medical-biological research Basic to the problem of using research in aging to meet the current needs of the aged and aging is the necessity of evaluating the current status and scope of research in the field. The subcommittee had many indications before the questionnaire was sent out that there is a serious deficiency in the amounts being spent for all research in aging, but specially inadequate are the sums devoted to the social sciences. Interest in the social science aspects of aging stems from the growing conviction, suggested in the opening paragraphs of this chapter, that the most significant consequences of aging do not lie in the extension of life itself but rather in how older people live, what they do with their lives, what problems and adjustments confront society by reason of their increasing numbers, and what contributions older people can make to their communities and to the general social welfare. The answers to these questions lie largely in the fields of the social sciences, or in what is rapidly coming to be known as the field of social gerontology. Answers are dependent in part, of course, on the physiological and health or disease characteristics of the organism itself (hence, the need for interdisciplinary studies), but the primary focus must be on such questions as what kinds of activities and responsibilities can be assigned to older people and what will they accept; what are the factors in maintenance of healthy mental outlooks; what are the effects of retirement from work, of widowhood, different levels of income, and of various social attitudes and policies on behavior and personal adjustment; what] housing, community facilities, and protective services do older people need, how much will they cost, and how should they be paid for. In order to arrive at a current evaluation of the situation as between the two general areas, the questionnaire first inquired: To what extent, if any, is there an imbalance in amounts being spent on medical-biological research on aging as over against social science research? The respondents were generally split on this issue with the social scientists asserting they do not receive anywhere near the amount of funds available for medical-biological studies and the physical scientists indicating a severe shortage of funds in their areas. In general each discipline emphasized the urgent, unfulfilled research needs in its own sphere. On balance, the evidence does indicate that a greater investment must be made in social gerontology, relative to the medical-biological fields. The issue is not one of reducing the medical-biological funds, but rather, how to increase both interest in and the resources of the social sciences. Here are the examples of typical comments from social scientists: A major increase in support given social science research is called for, not at the expense of support for medicalbiological research, but in addition to it. It appears that this increase is not likely to come from the States or private foundations, and will of necessity be given by the Federal Government. Dr. William H. Harlan, Department of Sociology, Ohio University (Athens). I believe there is no question whatsoever that there is a large imbalance in the amounts being spent on medicobiological research on aging as over against social science research although the field of psychology does not fall in the category of undersupported fields. The problem is that there is no regularly dedicated source of funds for basic or applied research in the social sciences, and the studies carried on through grants from the National Institutes of Health or other branches of the Public Health Service and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare must come under the province of health or mental health. Although the latter is quite broadly interpreted, there is much basic research needed and being proposed which can be conceived as a "health or mental health" only through a large degree of pure word stretching. A glance at any of the recent reports of the National Institutes of Health shows the large preponderance of nonsocial science research. However, the above remarks are not meant to imply that the medicobiological fields are necessarily being supported as well as they could be--I am only noting the relative lack of social science support. Dr. Harold L. Orbach, assistant project director, interuniversity training, Institute in Social Gerontology, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). The above quotation also emphasizes the need for basic research in the social sciences. In discussing the deeper implications of providing a "subject matter balance," Clark Tibbitts of the Department of HEW Special Staff on Aging has written that there is not an undue emphasis ** given to research in the biological and psychological aspects of the field, since * the basic functional, health, mental performance, and personality circumstances of large numbers of older people are such as to warrant our making the most possible progress in seeking their improvement. The present problem seems to me to lie more in inadequate recognition of the need for research on equally compelling sociological, economic, and political aspects of aging. Because there is no central Federal agency concerned with all aspects of research on aging, the subcommittee has been unable to obtain a complete analysis of total Federal expenditures classified according to the types of projects supported. However, following careful study of the data available, it believes that the statistics reported by the National Institutes of Health can be taken as fairly representative of the total situation. For the year ended January 31, 1960, the Center for Research on Aging reported a total NIH expenditure of grant funds of $12.4 million for research primarily ($5.5 million) or secondarily ($6.9 million) related to aging. The distribution of these funds by type of research and training is shown in the following table. Two subjectsphysiological aspects of aging and identifiable disease processes-account for 449 of the 569 extramural projects under support. Moreover, they accounted for 46 of the 54 intramural projects then in force. |