Reframing Aging: Public Health, Legal, Ethical Challenges In Combating Ageism

The presenters will address public health law and policy and complex legal and ethical issues that have arisen in connection with ageism during the COVID pandemic, and in particular, as such issues concern the needs of older women and older people of color. Both U.S. policy and the global experience will be explored, drawing on the perspectives of the AARP Reframing Aging Project and its focus on ageism. Allocation of resource decisions during the pandemic will be examined both in the contexts of macro-level policy, as well as at provider systems and practitioner levels. Strategies for strengthening equity and mitigating suffering for populations of older women and older people of color during pandemics will be presented, including development and implementation of public health approaches to palliative care.

Mary Beth Morrissey, JD, PhD, Moderator and Speaker, NYSBA Public Health Law Committee Co-Chair and Long Term Care Task Force Member, International Network for Prevention of Elder Abuse Member

Patricia M. D’Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP, Vice President, Policy and   

Professional Affairs, Gerontological Society of America

Violet Samuels, JD, NYSBA Long Term Care Task Force Member

Susan B. Somers, JD, President, International Network for Prevention of Elder Abuse

Ms. Somers earned a Law Degree in 1984 from Albany Law School, Albany NY, and holds a Certificate of Gerontology Studies. For two decades her practice areas concentrated on Civil Rights, Family and Elder Law Issues, i.e. Advance Directives, Financial Exploitation and Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution. She served as Assist. Deputy Attorney General for the State of New York, Consumer Frauds Bureau and Elder Protection Unit. She has expertise in Financial Exploitation of the Elderly and has developed and delivered numerous trainings to Financial Institutions, Law Enforcement, and Older Persons themselves. She also served as State Director of the NYS OCFS Bureau of Adult Services. She is currently President of the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, (INPEA), an International NGO with special consultative status at the UN, which launched the firstWorld Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD) on June 15, 2006. Her focus is on promoting older person’s human rights to end abuse, neglect and violence globally, through advocacy with UN Member States and International NGO’s. Within the NGO Comm. on Ageing, NY, she Co-chairs the Sub- committee on Elder Abuse and Older Women'  and the Sub-committee to Promote a New Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons. 

Patricia Brownell, PhD, Fordham University, International Network for Prevention of Elder Abuse

Thomas V. Caprio, MD, MPH, MS, CMD, HMDC, FACP, AGSF, FAAHPM, Moderator

Professor of Medicine/Geriatrics, Psychiatry, Dentistry, Clinical Nursing, & Public Health Sciences

Chief Medical Officer, UR Medicine Home Care

Medical Director, UR Medicine Hospice

Director, Finger Lakes Geriatric Education Center

Medical Director, UR Geriatric Assessment Clinic