Social Technology for Aging Societies (with Arthur Kleinman, Hong-Tu Chen, Ann Forsyth, and Fawwaz Habbal)

2023-12-14

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People aged sixty-five and older make up the fastest growing population around the world, posing unique challenges to societies. A Harvard initiative called Social Technology for Global Aging Research is founded on the belief that there’s a great potential for technologies and interventions to benefit the elderly, but only if they are developed with a deep understanding of day-to-day life. In the scope of this collaboration, technology for the elderly covers a wide range of needs—from engineering hardware for mobility to designing living environments and even tackling the logistics of meeting friends for tea. It’s an expansive collaboration between Harvard scholars and their Chinese counterparts. We speak with four collaborators who share fascinating examples of their work.

The founder of the initiative, Arthur Kleinman, believes that aging societies represent an unprecedented transformation of the global population that introduces a range of challenges. He emphasizes the need to bring together various disciplines—such as medical practitioners, engineers, and anthropologists, to name a few—to collaboratively solve problems the elderly face in their day to day lives. Much of the team’s research is conducted on the ground in China, where about 30 percent of the population of China will be sixty-five or older by 2050.

Fawwaz Habbal points out the particular challenges of engineering products and services for this constituency, but also highlights the great insights that emerge from using a multidisciplinary approach.

Ann Forsyth discusses the desire of the elderly to “age in place,” and what that means from an urban planning and housing perspective. The locations that may be desirable at one stage in life often change in older age. In China, for example, many older people have moved from the rural areas to the cities, and culturally it’s frowned upon to relocate parents to assisted living facilities.

Designing social interventions can be just as powerful as designing an effective piece of hardware. Drawing on his vast experience with older patients and elder resources, Hong-Tu Chen describes a simple method for fostering connections between children and their elderly parents.

All four scholars share fascinating stories about unintended consequences of new technologies, and surprisingly simple interventions that can have a powerful impact on quality of life.

Guests:

Arthur Kleinman, Faculty Associate. Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University; Professor of Medical Anthropology in Global Health and Social Medicine; Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

Hong-Tu Chen, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

Ann Forsyth, Faculty Associate. Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Planning; Interim Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Fawwaz Habbal, senior lecturer in applied physics, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.