Torres-Gil on Collective Responsibility to Support Elderly

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Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil was featured in a Covering Health article about developing policies to support aging populations. While advances in public health and medicine have increased the average life expectancy for humans, age- and health-related inequalities persist. Communities of color are especially vulnerable to social determinants of health and often have significantly lower life expectancies than other Americans. “If any good has come out of the pandemic, it may be that we are at a rare moment of opportunity for a paradigm shift moving away from individual to more collective responsibility,” Torres-Gil said. “One of the benefits of this great new era is that if we do all the right things, we have the real possibility to live a good long life, well into our 80s, 90s, and to be centenarians.”

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Torres-Gil Highlights Generational Impact of COVID-19

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Professor of Public Policy and Social Welfare Fernando Torres-Gil was interviewed by Next Avenue about the generational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Older adults have experienced a heavy toll, and Torres-Gil argued that the failure to protect our oldest and most vulnerable communities is indicative of a flawed system. “We recognize that your ZIP code, race, income and education level matter when it comes to who is most likely to pay the price during this pandemic,” he said. As part of California’s Master Plan on Aging Task Force, Torres-Gil has spent the last few years working on ways to better prepare the state for its growing population of older adults. “If we use a holistic perspective — one that takes a lifespan approach — we can increase equity and intergenerational cohesion,” he said. “With understanding and commitment, we can get there, and I hope that will be a positive outcome of this very difficult time.”

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Torres-Gil on Building a California for All Ages

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Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil was featured in a Forbes article about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Aging. The number of Californians age 60 and older is expected to nearly double from 6 million in 2010 to 11 million in 2030. One in five older adults in the state is living in poverty and older adults comprise the fastest-growing group of homeless individuals in California, Torres-Gil said. The Master Plan was also shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, including recommendations to avoid prioritizing younger people with COVID-19 over older ones and acknowledging the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on older adults. “The pandemic really dramatized that certain populations were at terrible risk, especially Black and brown communities, low-income communities, older adults, nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities, and persons with disabilities and chronic conditions,” Torres-Gil said.

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Time to Invest in the American People, Torres-Gil Writes

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Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil co-authored a piece in the San Antonio Express News about the need for a new federal program to aid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic and ensuing economic recession have exacerbated existing inequalities in the United States. During the Great Depression, New Deal programs and private investment in public enterprises helped promote economic recovery. According to Torres-Gil, President-elect Joe Biden has an “opportunity to create new economic policies for a healthier America and a social compact in which we can all value equity.” Torres-Gil described a “massive federal infrastructure spending bill — akin to a Marshall Plan — that creates more jobs, helps small businesses, emphasizing green industry as well as the hardest hit health and senior care sectors.” He recommended designing a new social contract that assures all Americans basic health care coverage, minimum income in old age, employment and caregiver support.

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Torres-Gil on Biden’s Plans for Older Americans

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Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil was featured in a Forbes article about President-elect Joe Biden’s plans for improving Medicare, Social Security and other income security policies that will have a large impact on older Americans. Panelists at the 11th annual Journalists in Aging Fellows Program recommended an intergenerational framework to shift the focus from the needs of people over 50 and instead see all issues as aging issues. “What I am suggesting for our generation [of baby boomers] is not only must we be advocates whether it is health security, retirement security, pension reform, protecting Social Security or protecting Medicare and Medicaid, but we must find ways to drill down and begin to represent the interests of younger, emerging, ethnic minority populations,” said Torres-Gil, director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA Luskin. “Otherwise, I fear we may see greater incidents of generational tension, exacerbated by racial and ethnic tensions.”

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Torres-Gil on California’s Plan to Address Aging

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Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil spoke to Senior Living Foresight about a new California report on government responses to aging. The article summarized two government-initiated efforts: a federal report, prepared in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, that suggests improving funding, infrastructure and access to personal protective equipment in nursing homes; and a report by the Stakeholders Committee for the California Master Plan for Aging, which Torres-Gil summarized. The California report calls for improving long-term care services and support systems, ending poverty, and ensuring affordable housing and equity of resources for all, regardless of individual circumstances. The report notes the impact of ageism, ableism and systemic racism — exacerbated by COVID-19 — on older adults and people with disabilities, especially in Black, Native American and Latino communities. “We are leading the nation,” Torres-Gil said of the statewide efforts. “We can show that there is no need to be afraid of diversity.”

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Science Matters, Torres-Gil Says

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The Larchmont Buzz highlighted Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil’s perspectives on the eradication of polio and lessons for the COVID-19 era at an online event marking World Polio Awareness Day. Polio cases have been reduced by 99.9% since Rotary launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, the article noted. Torres-Gil, a public health expert who survived polio contracted as an infant, told fellow Rotarians that he is concerned about mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. “Science matters, unity matters, public-private partnerships matter,” said Torres-Gil, director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA Luskin. “That’s what made the fight against polio work. … Unfortunately, it has been the exact opposite with COVID-19.” In addition to a death toll that has climbed past 200,000, the credibility of the scientific community is in danger, Torres-Gil explained. “The health of the nation is not a partisan issue,” he said. “We need data and facts.”

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Torres-Gil on Entrenched Disadvantages in Hispanic Community

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Fernando Torres-Gil, director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA Luskin, co-authored an opinion piece for the Abilene Reporter News on the accumulated lifelong disadvantages experienced by the Hispanic community, which leave it particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. “Hispanics are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to experience health conditions tied to poverty, low levels of educational attainment and inadequate retirement income,” wrote Torres-Gil and co-author Jacqueline L. Angel. Eliminating these disparities should be a national priority, they said, arguing for a robust social safety net that ensures access to health care coverage, fair housing and an equitable education. They also called for the creation of “new and innovative community assets — like affordable adult day and child care services — that are critical resources to improve intergenerational relations, health and well-being, as well as the academic success of generations to come.”

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Alumni Award Honors Torres-Gil for Rigor, Creativity, Innovation

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Professor Fernando Torres-Gil, director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA Luskin, received the 2020 Florence G. Heller Alumni Award from his alma mater, the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. The school honored Torres-Gil, an expert on health and long-term care, disability, entitlement reform and the politics of aging, for his multifaceted career spanning the academic, professional and policy arenas. The professor of social welfare and public policy has advised presidents from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama as well as state and local governments and agencies, and has conducted research around the world, particularly in Asia and Latin America. In one segment of a wide-ranging interview, Torres-Gil described his role as a young White House fellow summoned to the Situation Room to weigh in on the Carter Administration’s response to the flood of refugees fleeing Vietnam. “Many years later, I met individuals who were rescued in the late ’70s by the U.S. Navy. I take great pride that I had a direct role, in the right position at the right time, with the decision making,” he recalled. Torres-Gil, who earned his MSW and Ph.D. at the Heller School, said an invitation to attend the White House Conference on Aging in 1971 sparked a lifelong interest in gerontology and demographics, culminating in his most recent book, “The Politics of a Majority-Minority Nation: Aging, Diversity, and Immigration.” Torres-Gil is one of 15 recipients of the 2020 Heller Alumni Award, which honors individuals who have produced positive change through the rigor, creativity and innovation of their work.

 

Torres-Gil Paves Way for Young Leaders

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Fernando Torres-Gil, professor of social welfare and public policy, was interviewed by Generations Today about the importance of leadership in the field of aging. Looking back on his childhood, Torres-Gil said that he “learned early on to have big dreams (however unreachable), to have mentors and to listen to those mentors.” In college, he remembers learning the “value of building relationships with a diverse set of individuals, to get out of [his] comfort zone and to build relationships with people [he] was not comfortable with,” a lesson that has made his career possible. Self-confidence, resiliency and optimism are key to being an effective leader, he said. “The real action lies ahead of us,” said Torres-Gil, director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA Luskin. To future leaders, he said, “It’s your responsibility and a great opportunity to make a difference in the field of aging.”