A multi-sector movement to cultivate aging justice for all
Aging offers us the deepest look in the mirror at the state of our society.
As inequity compounds into our older age, it is an experience that unveils how systems impact all of us in particular and universal ways.
Across five counties of California, our team conducted community-engaged research with 100+ people to elevate the voices and lived experiences of older adults, caregivers, service providers, and local and national experts, mapping the drivers of health inequities as people age and the opportunities for systemic change.
Too often, there is a gap between the people most greatly impacted by systems, and those with power to shape systems, policies, and decisions. In listening and honoring the experiences of real people, our goal was to lift up lived experience as wisdom and to establish a foundation for policy, investments, and decision-making that honors the priorities and realities of people across California.
Project Snapshot
California, United States
2022-2023
In partnership with: Greater Good Studio, The SCAN Foundation, California Health Care Foundation, Metta Fund
Project category: community-engaged research, design strategy, public policy, visual storytelling
Role: Project Strategy Lead & Design Research Lead
Process & outcomes
To start, we conducted learning conversations with 26 leaders and representatives across aging, health equity, disability, health care, policy, advocacy, and community-based organizations to frame our focus areas for community-engaged research.
We partnered with four community-based organizations with deep place-based ties to connect with participants with a diverse range of lived experiences for primary research.
Primary research meant spending time with people in their contexts, ranging from an hour to a full day—visiting homes, adult day health care centers, clinics, community gardens, nursing homes and facilities, and more.
We visited rural, suburban, and urban regions of California across Imperial, San Diego, San Francisco, Butte, and Shasta County.
We synthesized the learnings from research and surfaced patterns in order to highlight three essential themes and nine opportunity areas — a collectively shaped answer to how we might transform the state of health equity in aging.
Health from our first to our final days
Economic & environmental wellbeing
Cultures of belonging and care
We shared out at the 2023 United for Health Equity in Aging Summit, an inaugural convening of aging, health equity, disability, policy, racial and social justice leaders launching a movement around aging justice for all. In an interactive exhibit, attendees were invited to share feedback and build on the themes and opportunity areas with ideas, tactics, and ongoing initiatives based in their own experiences, spheres of work, and communities.
We published a final report and shared back with community members. Building on this process, the SCAN Foundation, in collaboration with the California Health Care Foundation and Metta Fund, issued an RFP and awarded $900,000 to four Equity Community Organizing (ECO) Groups to address health inequities within their communities.
The SCAN Foundation continues to coordinate and invest in national, cross-sector movement work around Advancing Health Equity in Aging.
Stories of a Movement
Our final report, Stories of a Movement: Lived Experience Matters includes three essential themes and nine opportunity areas — a roadmap for how cross-sector leaders and advocates might transform the state of health equity in aging. The stories and perspectives of people we met and learned from are woven throughout, to illustrate each theme.
Lived experience matters: portraits from the field
Five video portraits, illustrating essential themes around health equity in aging. Each portrait was filmed in less than a day as an organic part of in-context community-engaged research. Here, we celebrate the older adults, caregivers, and community leaders we met along the way.
Derrion
Born and raised in the Bay Area & a former Black Panther, Derrion is preparing for kidney dialysis. He traces back what led to his health challenges – from alcohol and drugs used during his youth to escape the pain of an abusive stepfather, to growing up in an underinvested neighborhood with limited choices. The latter impacted everything — from the employment he secured to the food he ate.
Calexico
Calexico is known as the town where California and Mexico meet, where approximately 20 percent of the population are older adults and/or on Medicare. Many of this population are also farmworkers. In this video, clinic patients and providers of Calexico Wellness Clinic’s mobile clinic highlight some of the ways economic and environmental conditions such as poverty, housing stability, food security, and transportation play a pronounced role in a person’s biological age & the manifestation of health challenges over time.
Hmong Cultural Center
Health equity in aging requires a holistic definition of wellbeing — in body, mind, and spirit. This is especially true for older adults with diverse identities and backgrounds who have experienced the impact of discrimination and isolation; disconnection from identity, culture, or homeland; and an absence of belonging and community – all of which can dramatically impact mental and physical health. In this video, members of the Hmong Cultural Center speak about the importance of cultural connection in service of overall wellbeing.
Our Culture is the Cure
Inequity, and health inequity, is an unnatural part of the society we live in. The impacts of oppression are a form of pollution, affecting the older adults in our lives and the health of all of us. This video is an acknowledgment of Native people and culture that has been here, then erased, and yet is always still here. How might a return to where we come from — and who we come from — transform the state of health equity?
Harry
Growing up as a LGBTQ+ Chinese American in San Francisco, Harry was taught to be quiet. After decades of ostracization and discrimination, he is sharing his story and raising his voice.
These video portraits were screened at the inaugural United for Health Equity in Aging Summit in 2023.
We had the honor of having several guests from the research phase in attendance at the summit, sharing their experiences as part of a panel and seeing their stories live on the big screen.
The people & places we met
Throughout this process, we have heard many people express gratitude to our team for listening. We’ve continued to hear from the people about how they were reminded of the power of their own voice. This continues to remind us of not only the power of listening, but of the responsibility that comes with it—to continue elevating and transforming peoples’ stories into real, systemic change.
Over 100 people have entrusted us with their stories, and for each person who encounters this work, their stories are now entrusted with you. These are the people we, and this movement, are accountable to.
