BUILDING COMMUNITIES THAT PROMOTE SUCCESSFUL AGING

Despite the fact that, in a few years, a fifth of the US population wi ll be older than 65 years and people will be living a third of their l ives after retirement, we have developed few avenues that would permit older adults to play meaningful roles as they age and few institution s to harness the experience that older adults could contribute to soci ety. In fact, older adults constitute this country's only increasing n atural resource-and the least used one. In this article we consider th e rationale for developing institutions that harness the abilities and time of older adults, rather than focusing solely on their needs. Suc h an approach would decrease the structural lag between a social conce pt of retirement as unproductive leisure and an aging population that is larger, healthier, and with a need for more productive opportunitie s. Gerontologically designed opportunities for contribution on a large social scale could well provide a national approach to primary preven tion to maintain health and function in older adults.