Healthy Aging Initiative to Benefit Older Adults with Lower Incomes

PLEASANTON, CA, June 03, 2013 (Press-News.org) Residents of two California older adult affordable housing communities will be the first to benefit from an acclaimed national initiative that promotes successful aging.

ABHOW, in partnership with researchers at the University of Michigan, is testing Masterpiece Living at Fern Lodge and Casa de la Vista, both in Redlands, Calif.

Masterpiece Living uses multidisciplinary, holistic programming to improve the lives of older adults. The initiative evolved out of the MacArthur Foundation's 1998 study on successful aging, which found that 70 percent of physical aging and 50 percent of mental aging are determined by lifestyle.

Masterpiece Living has been successfully integrated in more than 70 locations across the U.S., but this expansion marks the first time the initiative has expanded to older adults in affordable housing communities.

"We continue to see encouraging results when we introduce Masterpiece Living into retirement communities with higher levels of socio-economic status," says Ancel Romero, ABHOW's senior vice president for affordable housing. "But we want to make successful aging accessible to all older adults, not just residents in CCRCs. We believe this initiative will allow us to show how affordable housing residents and all older adults can benefit from a physically and mentally active lifestyle as well."

The pilot program is the result of a partnership with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and is funded by a two-year grant from the MacArthur Foundation. The study is led by Drs. Robert Kahn and Toni Antonucci from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

The project's outcomes will be presented to policymakers and various federal agencies, including the U.S. Congress, the Administration on Aging, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"Our goal is to develop a blueprint that can be widely used to improve the quality of life for all older adults, of every income level," says Antonucci, the principal investigator. "We hope the results of this field experiment will also result in Medicare and Medicaid savings and contribute to efforts to reform current models of service provision to older Americans."

ABHOW launched Masterpiece Living in 2007 at Judson Park in Des Moines, Wash. The initiative has since been implemented at nearly all of ABHOW's continuing care retirement communities.

Founded in 1949, ABHOW is widely known for its pioneering leadership in senior housing and health care. The company serves more than 5,000 residents in 43 retirement communities in California, Arizona, Nevada and Washington. Learn more at abhow.com