Forward at 40: UMass Boston Gerontology 2023-2024 Impact Report
UMASS BOSTON GERONTOLOGY
2023-2024
BY THE NUMBERS
$655K
awarded in student support
50
gerontology doctoral students
113
articles published in peer-reviewed journals (along with 10 book chapters and 61 other reports)
$4M
external funding spent in FY 2024
64
Management of Aging Services master's and certificate students
103
presentations given at national & regional conferences & invited stakeholder meetings
$3.7M
market value of endowed funds
62
grad & undergrad students gaining research experience as paid assistants
#1
of 39 journals, CiteScore ranking for Journal of Aging & Social Policy, 1 of 2 gerontology journals based at UMass Boston
Four decades of leadership in aging
We're celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Gerontology Institute at UMass Boston in 2024. The university's gerontology program has built a global reputation with expertise in policy, equity, financial security and other areas of focus.
Ours is one of the oldest gerontology footprints in the country. It began with the Frank J. Manning Certificate program in 1979, followed five years later by the launch of the undergraduate program and the Gerontology Institute. In the late 1980s, the Gerontology Department and doctoral program were established and the Journal of Aging & Social Policy was founded. The Management of Aging Services program was added in 2003.
​
The Gerontology Institute has grown to include four unique centers: the Pension Action Center (1994), Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (1999), Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging (2012), and the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston (2017).
For 40 years, UMass Boston Gerontology has been advancing knowledge, promoting student success, serving the community, and furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion in gerontology education, research, and practice.
News highlights, 2023-2024
Under the gerontology umbrella, our faculty members, graduate students, staff researchers and directors pursue a broad range of topics. We've built particular expertise in the following areas:
Aging Equity
Equitable aging is the lens through which we approach most of our research and programming. Among other activities, the national nonprofit Justice in Aging has partnered with our LeadingAge LTSS Center to create a fellowship focused on data and equity.
READ MORE:
Age-Friendly Communities
A research team led by Beth Dugan, associate professor of gerontology, is expanding the geographic footprint of its series of statewide healthy aging data reports. The reports track as many as 200 indicators, drilling down to town level data on such things as access to housing, transportation, and healthcare; disease rates; safety and crime; and more. The researchers began their series in 2012 and focused on New England states, but they recently compiled reports for Mississippi and Wyoming.
READ MORE:
Education & Mentoring
Five doctoral students successfully defended their dissertations this spring, bringing our total for gerontology PhDs to 113. Our Management of Aging Services graduate program marked its 20th year in the fall of 2023, and our Osher Lifelong Learning Institute celebrated its 25th year in June 2024.
READ MORE:
Financial Security
With grant funding from the nonprofit Investor Protection Trust, our Pension Action Center hosted a fraud prevention summit on campus with a range of expert speakers. The university launched a partnership with the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, opening funding opportunities for researchers and internship programs for UMB undergraduates.
READ MORE:
Long-Term Services & Supports
The LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston will serve as evaluator for a four-year grant awarded to Community Catalyst by the federal Administration for Community Living to develop, test, and disseminate new approaches for increasing awareness of family caregivers and their unique concerns. The Moving Forward Coalition's Financing Systems committee, co-chaired by the LTSS Center's Marc Cohen, released an action plan encouraging nursing homes to improve their physical plants to make them feel less institutional and more like households.
READ MORE:
Social Determinants of Health
Jacqueline Avila, assistant professor of gerontology, is partnering with Nancy Rigotti, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an expert in tobacco cessation, through a National Cancer Institute U54 grant effort to increase cancer health equity and diversity in cancer research. The researchers are studying whether electronic cigarettes, or vaping, offers a harm-reduction option for older smokers who aren't willing to quit their cigarette use.