Oral

How and where we live, eat, work, play, and socialize profoundly influence our physical and mental health. This session on environment and aging covers the following topics: bringing aging and child advocates together to expand traditional air quality coalitions, decreasing exposure to air pollution and cardiovascular risk in aged-adults, everyday discrimination increases the risk of having multiple chronic conditions among older adults, using Twitter to monitor electrical devices to augment the safety of older adults living at home, as well as using an example from an accidental falls risk assessment program to understand the association between affect and ability to follow through on community health recommendations.

Session Objectives: 1. Identify potential community actions and policy solutions for addressing disparities in air quality related health problems that impact the community members, including older adults. 2. Discuss the prevalence of heart disease among the aged in the U.S and how age modifies risk for adverse cardiovascular outcomes after exposure to ambient air pollution. 3. Describe how stress, in general, and discrimination, in particular, affects the health of older adults. 4. Describe the impact of affective symptoms on the ability of community dwelling older adults to follow through on recommendations to reduce risk of accidental falls in the home environment.