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Using a nanny cam to safeguard my mother's health

A couple of years ago, I attended a talk at The Oxford Institute of Population Ageing on "Speculative Design." A colleague who worked in the area of digital health walked us thr...


Leveraging design expertise for an ageing society

Two uncontested facts about the UK: first, we have an ageing population that can be especially vulnerable in a public health crisis; second, we have one of the world’s largest and most advanc...


COVID-19 in the Middle East and North Africa, MENA Region

It has been several weeks since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. Different countries have reported different infection and mortality rates. Spain, Italy and t...


Notes on religion and spirituality in later life

For some time, I have wondered about the relationship between spirituality/religion and well-being in old age. What kind of evidence is there that they promote good physical and mental health and g...


COVID-19 Impacts on Young and Old

We are living through one of the worst health crises in recent history. Let’s begin with what we know about this virus. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that can cause serious respiratory dise...


COVID-19: The uncertainty of the data and the importance of mild or asymptomatic cases

Since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, we have been overwhelmed by numbers, data and statistics. Right, but what do these statistics and data mean? What do they really tell us? The truth is, ...


Corona Virus – Life could never be the same again

Life could never be the same again. For many families life will never be the same as they face the loss of dearly loved family members. For the rest of us, life could change if we start now to buil...


Older people bear the burden of spread of coronavirus

There is a dire need for suitable responses to the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic for older people living in low- and middle-income countries such as Pakistan. In the limited time since the o...


A note on pensioner poverty

Official statistics in the UK measure pensioner poverty in two basic ways - either by looking at the income of pensioner households/individuals relative to the UK median income or by looking at a m...


So, do experts now know what they are talking about?

On Thursday 23 June 2016 the EU referendum took place and the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. I am sure we all remember either with pain or with pleasure the campaig...


Changing Occupations in an Ageing Society

More and more consumer products targeted at older people are coming onto the market in Japan. This can be seen, for example, in the way that electronics manufacturers such Sony and Panasonic are in...


Ageing and place: exploring how cities shape older people’s lives

As we grow older our lives are increasingly shaped by where we live, and for growing numbers of older people in both high- and low-income countries, home is in the city. Rapid urban population agei...


Getting the right data for interdisciplinary research can be very difficult

Since I started my academic career, my interests have always been in the field of landscape ecology.  I study the relationships between ecological processes, such as habitat selection for anim...


Community gerontology as an interdisciplinary interdiscipline?

Gerontology is in many ways a prime example of an interdiscipline[1]. Here, I attempt to elucidate the challenges and opportunities of community gerontology as an interdisciplinary interdiscipline....


Ageing and the Elderly in Rwanda – The Missing Voice

In June the Commonwealth Heads of Government  (CHOGM) will meet in Kigali the capital of Rwanda . They have chosen ‘youth’ as their theme. Despite its ferocity the Rwandan genoc...