Events

Past Event

Carol D. Ryff – Unequal Lives and Aging: What Do We Know? What Do We Need to Know?

April 12, 2017
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
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Hess Commons, Allan Rosenfield Building, 722 W. 168th Street

Carol D. Ryff, PhD, is Director of the Institute on Aging and Hilldale Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Ryff will review growing evidence on the health and longevity consequences of inequalities in educational attainment and income. She will highlight the work of MIDUS investigators in explicating the mechanisms (behavioral and biological) that link inequality to adverse health outcomes. MIDUS researchers have also advanced understanding of protective psychological and social factors that offer buffers against these pernicious processes. She will illustrate with a focus on “purposeful life engagement,” which is emerging as a key asset to healthy aging. Future directions will focus on two neglected topics (one negative, one positive) in the science of inequality: greed among privileged elites as an insufficiently studied fundamental cause, and the role of the arts and humanities in promoting better lives and more beneficent societies.

Carol D. Ryff, PhD, is Director of the Institute on Aging and Hilldale Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Ryff directs the MIDUS (Midlife in the U.S.) longitudinal study, which is based on a large national sample of Americans, including twins. Funded by the National Institute on Aging, MIDUS has become a major forum for studying health and aging as an integrated biopsychosocial process.

This event is sponsored by The Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center.