Virtual MAIA Every Thur in August 2020

Every Thursday in August 2020 at 12 noon Central

For a dozen years, the Mid-American Institute on Aging & Wellness has hosted keynote and concurrent sessions on an array of topics to promote health and wellness across the lifespan.

MAIA secured a fantastic line up of speakers this year who agreed to present online due to the constraints presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is a great introduction to MAIA
because registration is FREE
for many attendees this year. 

VIDEO Introduction (from 7/14/2020 runtime 4:30 min) 

Click the blue word "VIDEO" above
to play the video

Settings that Heighten Risk for SARS-CoV-2 Transmission

Photo by diofw

Because I want to better understand the risk factors for coronavirus (aka COVID-19 the disease, SARS-COV-2 the virus), I wrote a post in April about biological risk factors such as obesity and diabetes. I'm adding to that post as new risk factors are announced (such as blood type).

Basically, these elements increase risk of COVID-19 transmission:

• Being INDOORS (less ventilation of fresh air, more risk)
• Being in a CROWDED space (closer to people, more risk)
• LINGERING in that space over times (more time, more risk)
• Being in a county with a HIGH INFECTION RATE (more community infection, more risk)
• Being in a crowd WITH TRAVELERS from many other locations (more counties, more risk)
• Being in a crowd where people PROJECT THEIR VOICE OR BREATH by talking, cheering, yelling, crying, booing, singing, panting, coughing, sneezing (more people exhaling forcefully with high frequency, more risk)

The date of this post is June 12th, but as I read news stories and scholarly studies, I will be adding information about settings that are high risk factors for transmission.

Books about Epidemics and Pandemics

I've decided to channel some of my nervous energy about COVID-19 into reading books about pandemic directed at the lay reader. I do read news stories and scientific updates, but it's hard to see the forest from the trees right now. 

By looking at the work of epidemiologists narrating how they have addressed various outbreaks over the last 100 years, I can learn something about how people respond to contagions that cause epidemics and pandemics. 


Here's my list in reverse chronology.

WHO Global Aging Report

Photo by Wendy North.

I'm spending May developing a university course on the topic of Global Aging and Health Care. Textbooks are always a few years behind current data. However with COVID-19, the information about the health of older adults is rapidly becoming outdated.

Even with COVID-19, the world's population is aging. Do countries have support services in place to assist them? 

The health of older adults is interwoven with other dimensions of their location--their country's economics, politics, military conflicts, population pyramids, migration patterns, and available health care services, just to name a few.

Nevertheless, I am striving to learn the "lay of the land" about global aging by surveying reports by major stakeholders such as WHO, UN, UNESCO, OECD and others.

I'm starting by reading the World Health Organization's report Global Health and Aging (published in October 2011).

Here are the highlights with some responses based on the COVID-19 pandemic.