Aging

Framing can help address negative attitudes toward aging. FrameWorks' research offers powerful ways to shift thinking about aging and older people.

People are living longer, healthier lives. But ageism stops us from adapting our society to that reality.

Some ways of countering ageism don’t work the way we expect. “Super senior” stories featuring tremendous late-life accomplishments do more harm than good. Comparing ageism to racism or sexism also backfires. It leads people to think that ageism isn’t as serious as these other forms of discrimination.

Explore the narratives that help us push for age-friendly policy and confront ageism.

Featured Work

Reframing Aging Through Images

Just like words, images play an important role in the implicit messages we send about older people.

Toolkit

Gaining Momentum

The way Americans currently think about aging creates obstacles to productive practices and policies. How can the field of aging help build a better understanding of aging, ageism, and what it...

Report

Public Thinking About Care Work: Encouraging Trends, Critical Challenges

Has the salience of care and the respect for frontline workers seen during the pandemic stayed high or dwindled? What we find is both encouraging and a call to action.

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External article

Philanthropy’s Ripple Effect: When Funders Seed a Field

When we celebrate the momentum toward universal access to Pre-K, we need to remember that this too has been the result of years of advocacy and hard work.

Report

Reframing Hunger in America

How can we elevate public understanding that hunger in America is widespread – and not just a personal failing?

External article

Reframing Aging: Growing “Old at Heart”

Describing aging as “building momentum” helps people see how experience and wisdom enables older people to improve their communities.

External article

Frames that Support Successful Aging

How can we create an attitude adjustment on aging? Writer and aging advocate Helen Dennis answers that question by pointing to FrameWorks research and resources on how to reframe aging in...

External article

An Attitude Adjustment on Aging

Are you part of the effort to reframe aging? FrameWorks Strategy and Outreach Associate April Callen explains how to spark more productive conversations around aging in this blog post for the...

Report

Framing Strategies to Advance Aging and Address Ageism as Policy Issues

This brief lays out an approach to changing public thinking about aging in America.

Report

Finding the Frame: An Empirical Approach to Reframing Aging and Ageism

This report outlines an evidence-based reframing strategy and details the research methods and findings behind it.

External article

New Tools to Combat Ageism

In this HuffPost column, John Feather, CEO of Grantmakers in Aging, explores new research and resources that aging advocates can use to reframe the public’s understanding of aging from a period...

Toolkit

Talking Elder Abuse

This toolkit models how to apply the FrameWorks Institute’s evidence-based recommendations to messages and conversations about elder abuse and related issues, in order to build public...

Toolkit

Gaining Momentum

The way Americans currently think about aging creates obstacles to productive practices and policies. How can the field of aging help build a better understanding of aging, ageism, and what it...

External article

The “Other” 2016 Campaign

This Forbes feature covers the “other” 2016 campaign: the one to reframe aging. It highlights FrameWorks research on public attitudes about aging—and the “dark view” focused on...

External article

Advocating for Aging Services in a Digital World

Julie Sweetland, FrameWorks’ vice president for strategy and innovation, explores the possibilities and perils of social media for Aging Today. Followers matter, she concludes, but not more than...