Salient Challenges That Face Aging

Identifying one of the salient challenges that face aging adults and people with disabilities in Oregon is not particularly difficult as there are many that initially come to mind that are sparked by my time with the Governor’s Advocacy Office (GAO) and my experience engaging and working with the diverse population that is older and aging adults and people with disabilities. The elephant in the room around this issue is the staggering fact of the sheer number of aging adults as part of the population in the future. The Administration on Aging under the US Department of Health and Human Services provides the following statistic of note:
The older population—persons 65 years or older—numbered 46.2 million in 2014 (the latest year for which data is available). They represented 14.5% of the U.S. population, about one in every seven Americans. By 2060, there will be about 98 million older persons, more than
Moreover, our cultural values as a whole appear not to give priority to providing services and support for older and disabled adults. One needs to look no further than the ebb and flow of the DHS budget and how it seems to appear that one of the first programs and services to face cuts are those specific to the aging and disabled populations; of which many of whom are already stretched to their limit by the financial, medical and emotional burdens they experience on a daily basis. These challenges alone are not unique to aging and disabled Oregonians, however I would argue that they are emblematic of the larger cultural bias that places an undue and an uneven hardship to some of our most vulnerable