“Our country is unprepared — and policymakers have made excuses for decades to not address aging services issues,” LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan said last week. “Providers are left to patch together insufficient systems and somehow manage when breakdowns occur, which they invariably do. This approach cannot — it must not — continue.”
LeadingAge is a community of nonprofit aging services providers and other mission-driven organizations serving older adults, according to the organization’s website at LeadingEdge.org.
Sloan’s remarks came Thursday as the association continues to execute on its three-year strategic plan for 2024-2026. Advocacy is “critical” and ongoing, she said.
“Effective advocacy is not ‘one and done,’ nor can one person or team accomplish it alone,” Sloan said, adding that the association will continue to rely on its members and board to advance its priorities.
“The aging of America is unprecedented. The age distribution of our population is flipping upside down and landing on its head: older people outnumbering younger folks by a huge margin, not for a day, but for years to come,” Sloan said.
The oldest baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are turning 79 this year. It is estimated that the 75-and-older population will almost double from 2023 to 2060.
“Adapting to a changing administration and a new Congress requires determination, and is crucial to our mission of serving older Americans. We remain steadfast in our commitment to advocate on their behalf,” said Roberto Muñiz, president and CEO of New Jersey-based Parker Health Group, who is continuing to serve as board chair of LeadingAge for 2025.
David Lindeman, PhD, who has worked with LeadingAge’s Center for Aging Services Technologies and numerous LeadingAge member organizations on various projects, has joined the board of directors and now will serve as board liaison to CAST. Lindeman is executive director of the CITRIS Health Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute at UC Berkeley and director of the Center for Technology and Aging.
LeadingAge also noted that Ohio Living CEO Laurence Gumina and RiverWoods Group President and CEO Justine Vogel are now board secretary and treasurer, respectively.
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