CHSPR Seminar | Longevity revolution and changing care needs

New challenges for the welfare state(s)

Mari Aaltonen, UBC Dept of Sociology and Tampere University, Finland

Tuesday, May 7, 2019
12-1 pm
Room 219 (within 201), 2206 East Mall
School of Population and Public Health
University of British Columbia

Simultaneous changes in life expectancy and morbidity especially near the end of life set challenges to reforming health and social care services. People live to older ages with better health and functioning than in previous decades. Yet, the major age-related chronic conditions such as dementia cause increasing needs for care especially in the last years of life. How has the rapidly aging Nordic welfare state of Finland responded to these relatively new challenges? Is Canada providing similar solutions to aging Canadians? First Dr. Aaltonen will provide information on population changes in Finland and how the health and social care policies and the care system have changed in past decades. Second, she will present her current study plans on care service use among older adults in Canada.

Mari Aaltonen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (funded by the Academy of Finland) at the UBC Department of Sociology and the Faculty of Social Sciences (Health Sciences) and Gerontology Research Center, Tampere University, Finland. Her postdoctoral project focuses on aging and care; how the increasing longevity, cognitive problems and the changes in health and social care policy affect the use of formal and informal care over time. Her work combines the fields of gerontology and health services research.

A light lunch is included in this seminar. Please contact Joyce (joyce.huang@ubc.ca) to RSVP for lunch by Friday May 3. You may also join remotely via GoToMeeting: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/297740069. Please let Joyce know if you would like to join this way.