Welcome to Aging Edge, the new section of post-gazette.com intended to give older adults, their families and the professionals who deal with them a one-stop guide to both new information and permanent resources. It’s a little bit like a blog, but also much more than that, providing a comprehensive news tool focused on local aging unlike anything else we’ve seen on the Internet.
Aging Edge will package the latest articles that have appeared in the Post-Gazette on aging-related topics, plus highlight worthwhile work done in other publications and inform readers about new research findings and upcoming events. We’ll archive past articles in a way that makes it easy to find them long after they appeared, by clicking on either the headlines you see on the section front or the tabs above that package stories related to Health, Housing, Caregiving, Work and Finances.
Clicking on any part of the Where to Start, Where to Go section at the bottom of the page will lead to background information on topics daunting to many families, such as navigating the long-term care system and dealing with dementia and end-of-life planning. Included at the end of each topic are web links and phone numbers for consumers to access government help, private resources or additional practical information.
On the lower right of the section front, under Expert Q&A, you’ll find frequent interviews with both local and national experts on aging-related topics that are fresh in the news or have permanent relevance. The first is with longtime Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging Administrator Mildred Morrison, describing programs and trends.
And this guide to the site that you’re presently reading, ”The Latest in Aging ...” will be regularly updated to tell you what’s new at Aging Edge or link you to other information. For starters, for those truly interested in aging trends locally, there’s no better resource than the vast amount of topics covered in “The State of Aging in Allegheny County,” a comprehensive report from the University of Pittsburgh’s University Center for Social & Urban Research.
We hope you’ll visit Aging Edge frequently to see the new content that’s regularly posted, in addition to other features we expect to add based on reader input. All of your feedback is welcome, whether in the Comments section below or by emailing grotstein@post-gazette.com.
Why is Aging Edge being introduced? Simple: The Post-Gazette publishes a vast amount of information of interest to older adults and those who care about them, and that content can remain useful long after it has been published if we make it easy to find. In addition, we have access to all kinds of valuable content from other sources that can be provided here in a manner that is not possible in a daily newspaper.
It’s an innovative web venture that few other media in the country have attempted, but we deem it all the more important in Pittsburgh, a region long known for its high proportion of elderly. (Census data show 18.3 percent of the metropolitan area’s population to be 65 or older, compared to 14.5 percent nationwide.)
We hope you’ll find it worthwhile to return to Aging Edge frequently, and we hope you’ll offer ideas to make it still more relevant for you in the future.
Gary Rotstein: grotstein@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1255.
First Published: April 4, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
