International Rural Aging Project

Conference Information-Press Releases

Conference Draws International Rural Aging Experts
Renown International Experts Take Experiences Back to their Countries

CHARLESTON, WV (June 10, 2000) – The First International Conference on Rural Aging has drawn participants from 33 countries throughout the world. Conferees from Africa, Asia and Europe have shared their experiences and knowledge on rural aging issues with one another during the four-day conference.

With more than 60 percent of the world’s elderly living in rural areas, the conference provides the participants with an opportunity to learn about programs and policies that are working in other parts of the world to address rural aging issues. “In my township of Amelodi, 75 percent of the inhabitants are elderly,” says Sarah Modise, a conferee from Pretoria, South Africa. “Right now there are no groups that are advocates for the elderly at the government level. By attending this conference, my hope is to come up with policies that will benefit our elderly.”

The conference is structured to provide the attendees with a variety of educational opportunities and exchanges of ideas through site visits, such as the visit to the Aging Well in Calhoun County Demonstration Project, policy debates that focus on global aging issues, symposia covering a variety of aging issues and presentations of scholarly works. “I am at the conference to present the comparison of data on rural aging between France and the United States,” says Michel Frossard, Professor of Economics and Head of Gerontology at Universite Pierre Mendes France. “I find it interesting how people of different countries approach the same issues with different solutions. All of the sessions that I have attended have been extremely useful.”

The conference, which is part of the four-year United Nations Programme on Ageing sponsored International Rural Aging Project (1997-2001) to address problems affecting elderly persons in rural and remote communities, will review and integrate the latest research to provide input to the International Plan of Action on Aging. This plan will be presented to the XVIIth International Congress of Gerontology, Vancouver, Canada, in 2001. In addition to academics and policy makers, the conference will attract practitioners who are familiar with the issues of rural aging, including health professionals, social workers and community activists from around the world.

The West Virginia University Center on Aging has been named by the United Nations Programme on Ageing as its advisory organization on rural aging issues. The Center on Aging of the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center manages educational programs, research projects, health care projects, community service and outreach programs, and evaluation of programs contributing to increasing the quality of life for the elderly.