EVANSTON, IL (January 18, 2023) – Three organizations, Mather, an 82-year-old not-for-profit dedicated to creating Ways to Age WellSM; Georgetown University’s Aging and Health program; and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, working with its Office of Accessibility and VSA, recently collaborated on a unique cross-industry initiative to answer the critical question: how can innovations in creativity developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic fight ageism and support healthy longevity? The results have been compiled into a Creative Aging Innovation Report, The Next Wave in Creative Aging, which is available as a free download at www.mather.com/whitepaper.
Creative Aging is a movement that has been gaining momentum for the last 15+ years, initially growing out of a study by the National Endowment for the Arts and National Institute of Mental Health in 2006, which found that older adults who engage with the arts have better outcomes in physical health, mental health, and social connection, and that humans are wired to become more creative as they age. The movement has sought to make meaningful creative encounters more available to older adults and look to where arts and culture can be part of the solution to society’s most pressing needs related to aging.