IAAP Applied Gerontology Division 7 Report

Report to 2004 Beijing Board of Directors Meeting

By R. Fernández-Ballesteros, President

From the last Report (2003) by the Past-President Frances Culbertson, Division 7 has been involved in four most important activities: 1) Members recruitment; 2) International activities; 3) Visibility, and 4) Task force on Policies on Active Ageing.

1. Members.

Several efforts have been made for members recruitments. Christine Schwarzer is trying both to recruit new members for IAAP and to recruit more IAAP members for the Division. These efforts can be checked in the last list sent by the General Secretary.

2. Visibility.

Division 7 has been present in several International Congresses trying to extend both IAAP as Association and the field of Applied Gerontology as IAAP Division. Invited lectures, Symposium and Papers were presented by Division members in the IV Iberoamerican Congress of Psychology (Bogotá, July, 2003), the VI European Congress of Gerontology (Barcelona, 2003) and Regional Congress of Applied Psychology (2003).

3. International activities.

One of the most prominent project on Gerontology in which Applied Psychology is involved is related to the United Nation International Plan of Action on Ageing (Madrid, 2002). 2003-04, Members of the Division have been invited to participate in the United Nation Meeting in measuring Quality of Life on the MIPAA (Barcelona, July 2003), United Nation-Latin American Region, Conference on Quality of Life on Ageing (Santiago de Chile, September, 2003), United Nation Meeting for Review and Appraisal of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (November, Malta 2003), the United Nation-European Region meeting for review and appraisal of the MIPAA (Madrid, April, 2004).

4. Task Force for Policies on “Active Ageing”

As mandate of the IAAP Executive Committee (Singapore, 2003), an IAAO Policy Committee was chaired by J. Berry and M. Frese. Division 7 proposed the topic on Active Ageing taking into consideration that ageing is one of the most important demographic phenomenon in which psychology has a relevant role.

Throughout the twentieth century all over the world, there was an increase both in the rate of people older than 65 and in the absolute number of these age range ageing has been converted in one of the most relevant issue all over the world. In 2002, United Nation approved a II International Plan of Action on Ageing which has been adapted to the five continents in the World. This plan has a priority direction regarding the relevance of active ageing for all societies. Also, The World Health Organisation (WHO, 2002) published the document “Active Ageing” as a target to be promote all over the world. Both in the WHO conceptualisation of active ageing and in the determinants of active ageing introduce important psychological contributions. Therefore, it is essential to identify which are the main policies based on applied psychology in order to promote active ageing.

Trying to reach this goal, a Task Force on “Active Ageing” has been created and it is composed by the following members:

§ Lu Changqin (China)

§ Norman Abeles (USA)

§ Frances Cubertson (USA)

§ Anastasia Efklides (Greece)

§ Constanca Paul (Portugal)

§ Christine Schwarzer (Germany)

§ Rocío Fernández-Ballesteros (Chair, Spain)

During the Beijin Congress, the State of the Art of our task force will be presented in the Invited Symposium held by J. Berry and M. Frese with the title: ACTIVE AGEING:

Developing psychological trends for policies.

The Division invites Executive members of the IAAP as well as other Division Presidents to send suggestions and comments on this report in order to reach the most important goal of the IAAP and Division 7 on Applied Gerontology (to: r.fballesteros@uam.es).