International Rural Aging Project

Conference Information-Highlights

Rural Aging Conference Ends; WHO Taps WVU for Future Work

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Most of the 3,000 attendees of the International Rural Aging Conference have returned home, but the work begun June 7-11 in Charleston, W.Va., will have an impact throughout the world over the next several decades.

Representatives of 40 nations – from six continents – shared success stories and outlined the challenges facing older people around the world during the five-day conference. About 2,100 delegates registered, and another 1,000 persons participated in public events associated with the conference. 

Four key themes emerged from the discussions, said Robert M. D’Alessandri, M.D., of West Virginia University, who chaired the event. They are:

  • The need for more, and better, research into the local, national and worldwide consequences of aging populations in rural areas.

  • The need to establish strategies for illness and accident prevention and health promotion, to establish a base of good health among our rural elderly. 

  • The need to educate all health professionals about the special aspects of aging in rural communities, and to include attention to the problems of the aging in determining accreditation and funding of health education programs.

  • The need to abolish inequities in access to health care, economic resources, and other services essential to the maintenance of independent lives for the rural elderly. 

WVU’s Center on Aging will play a key part in developing worldwide strategies in each of the four areas. Alexandre Kalache, chief of the World Health Organization’s aging and health promotions programs, announced during the conference that the WVU center will become a Collaborating Center on Rural Aging with the WHO.

“We are honored to be chosen for this task,” said Hana Hermanova, M.D., who leads the WVU center. “This means that we will assume accountability for the implementations of programs proposed both at the Charleston conference and at subsequent WHO and United Nations sessions.”
Kalache told the conferees that the main challenge they face is the wide disparity in economic resources among nations. In many nations in Africa, for example, the AIDS epidemic has devastated the “middle generation” – leaving grandparents caring for tens of thousands of youngsters. Countries that had 2 to 3% of the population over the age of 60 a few years ago will soon have 8 to 10% in this bracket – and few have systems in place to provide services to older persons.

Developed nations – some of which, like the U.S., have cut assistance to developing nations in the last half of the 20th century – will be asked to shoulder more of the costs.

WVU plans to host another such conference in 2003 or 2004, Dr. D’Alessandri said. “The emphasis then will be on seeing how far we’ve come, and measuring accomplishments in each of the participating countries, as well as developing new goals and strategies.”

He added that Charleston would definitely be considered as a conference site again. “Many of the international delegates expressed to me how warmly they had been treated – in the hotels and restaurants, and even by people on the street. The facilities – including the Civic Center and hotels – were excellent, and the weather was beautiful.”