Last year at the annual Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health, I met the remarkable Donato Tramuto, the CEO of Tivity Health and Founder of Health eVillages. As we connected over a shared interest in incarceration issues (he’d just come from an event at RFK Human Rights), I was immediately impressed and inspired by his focus and “take action” attitude. This is a man who is driven to create real change and find solutions that improve lives. So when I ran into Donato several months later in Boston at Patrick Kennedy’s parity PAC launch reception and he invited me to his convening on rural aging, I was honored and thrilled with the opportunity to participate. This week, we are headed to that event, the Connectivity Summit: A Catalyst for Change in Rural Aging.
Mr. Donato Tramuto, Dr. Mary Jane England, Mrs. Rosalynn Carter, Dr. Sandro Galea
As Donato points out in his recent LinkedIn post, 10,000 people are aging into Medicare every day, and one in four of those older Americans live in rural areas or small towns. At Flawless, we know that connection and community are as essential to wellbeing as exercise and healthy diet, and this remains true no matter how old we are. Unfortunately, social isolation is increasing -- the number of adults who report that they are lonely has doubled since the 1980s, from 20 to 40 percent. Furthermore, isolation has been shown to have a wide range of negative health impacts, from reduced immune function, to higher levels of stress, to increased risk for heart disease.
Older adults are particularly vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness, and with this population projected to grow significantly, the conversations taking place at this summit are critical, and this inaugural convening will be an important step in developing solutions to improve the health and wellbeing of our older citizens. As Donato shares, “it will take the collective knowledge, resources, and passion of all the experts and advocates participating in the Connectivity Summit to unlock a new future for these individuals.”
Janine Francolini, Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Donato Tramuto
Like so many, my family has been touched by the often heartbreaking health issues that face older adults, and we’ve faced the challenges of finding the best way to care for aging family members. I’ve been encouraged to see some of these issues receiving greater public attention this month as a part of Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month. Developing resources, systems, and services to promote the wellbeing of older Americans is a task for all of us. We are honored with the opportunity to join experts at the front lines of this issue to discuss and share how we can do so effectively and ensure that the flawless members of our older generations feel accepted, embraced, and cared for by their communities.
Learn more about this important summit, co-sponsored by the MIT AgeLab and Jefferson College of Population Health here.