Older adults struggle to access COVID-19 vaccine appointment websites
They’re not accessible for people who need them most
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Photo by Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images
Buggy websites and complex online tools are being used to schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments across the United States. The systems are hard to navigate for many people, but they’re particularly inaccessible for older adults. People over the ages of 65 and 75 are prioritized for early waves of vaccination and are most at risk from COVID-19 but they’re also often uncomfortable and unfamiliar with technology.
“The most vulnerable people are left behind even more so than if we hadn’t used more of a technology-oriented solution,” says Ethan Basch, a medical oncologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and physician-in-chief at the North Carolina Cancer Hospital.
A recent Stanford conference looked at everything from business innovations to caregiving to new ways for Americans to work and thrive throughout the increasingly long lives they re now living.
Coronavirus Pandemic Exposes Imperative For American Universities To Find Ways To Better Serve Adult Learners
New Report from the Longevity Project Makes Case for Investments in Lifelong Learning
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ The coronavirus pandemic has both revealed emerging challenges to the service model of American colleges and universities while also presenting a strong opportunity for them to serve adult learners, according to a new report from the Longevity Project entitled New Horizons: American Universities and the Case for Lifelong Learning. Rising costs and a decline in the traditional student population has put many colleges at risk. At the same time, the pandemic has revealed a greater demand and need for reskilling among adult learners, a need that universities can, and should, help to fill.
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COTTAGE INDUSTRY: Many homes with stairways to entry will need to be redesigned to accommodate seniors who want to age in place in coming years. Irina88w/Dreamstime
Those over 50 account for more than one-third of the U.S. population, half of all consumer spending, and 83% of household wealth. That should make catering to the aging population a lucrative opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors one that could be akin to investing in the software boom in the 1980s or internet in the 1990s.
That was the takeaway from aging experts and investors at a virtual panel discussion on Monday at the 2020 Century Summit held by the Longevity Project and the Stanford Center on Longevity.