--- title: How Ageism Negatively Affects Older People’s Health description: A study documents the adverse effect that age discrimination can have on longevity, quality of life and mental and physical illness among older people canonical: https://time.com/5767265/ageism-health/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-01-17T17:41:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T08:04:54.125Z article:section: Health og:title: Ageism Can Negatively Affect Older People’s Health og:description: A study documents the adverse effect that age discrimination can have on longevity, quality of life and mental and physical illness among older people og:url: https://time.com/5767265/ageism-health/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf719151bd4e660c9/698a090122fb85cebce2a7a5/GettyImages-996842948.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4201 og:image:height: 2363 og:image:alt: The wait is long og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ageism Can Negatively Affect Older People’s Health twitter:description: A study documents the adverse effect that age discrimination can have on longevity, quality of life and mental and physical illness among older people twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf719151bd4e660c9/698a090122fb85cebce2a7a5/GettyImages-996842948.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Ageism Negatively Affects Older People’s Health > Sponsored content. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jan 17, 2020 5:41 PM UTC  Cropped shot of a senior woman sitting with her hands clasped in a retirement home Cropped shot of a senior woman sitting with her hands clasped in a retirement home Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jan 17, 2020 5:41 PM UTC Bias against age is prevalent in many societies, embedded into societal institutions and expressed in individual perceptions and behaviors, and studies have shown that ageism can negatively affect older people’s health. As the aging population around the world continues to grow, these biases could add to already skyrocketing health care costs, say experts. To determine how much ageism can influence older people’s health, researchers at Yale University analyzed 422 studies involving ageism in 45 countries from 1970 to 2017\. The studies included data from seven million older people and specifically addressed age discrimination and health outcomes. In a[ report published in _PLOS ONE_ on Jan. 15](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0220857), the scientists found evidence of ageism adversely affecting older people’s health in 96% of the studies. Becca Levy, professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, had been studying the issue at an individual level, but wanted to look beyond individuals to see how ageism’s impact on health played out at the societal and structural levels. She pulled the 422 studies in the analysis from a wider set of more than 21,000 that addressed both structural contributors to ageism and the effects of ageism on individuals’ health. Overall, the studies found that ageism was related to worse health on 11 measures. Four of these are structural: * Denial of access to health care * Exclusion from clinical trials * Having resources, including medical services, rationed because of their age * Limited work opportunities And seven of the measures are at the individual level: * Decreased longevity * Poorer quality of life * Compromised social relationships * Risky health behaviors * mental illness * cognitive impairment * physical illnesses Many of these measures were seen in an overwhelming majority of the studies. For example, in 85% of the studies, ageism was linked to older people being denied access to health care treatments and in 95% of the studies, there was evidence that ageism affected psychiatric conditions like depression, including increased depressive symptoms over time. “We found evidence of ageism in every country we looked at, every year we looked at, and in every health domain we looked at,” says Levy. “The pervasiveness of it I found disturbing.” There was encouraging news in the findings, however, about the benefits of countering ageism. When older people adopted a more positive perception of their age, rather than buying into negative stereotypes, they experienced less anxiety and suicidal ideation. The data also suggest that improving education for health care providers about age-based bias could alleviate some of the negative health effects of ageism; while awareness of age discrimination has grown in recent years, other changes to the health care system, such as the shorter exam times that doctors have with their patients, may contribute to reinforcing negative stereotypes. Such efforts for addressing ageism could lead to savings in health costs, says Levy, who conducted[ previous research](https://academic.oup.com/gerontologist/advance-article/doi/10.1093/geront/gny131/5166947?searchresult=1) showing that $63 billion spent annually on older Americans’ health for eight of the most expensive conditions could be traced to ageism. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5767265/ageism-health/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5767265/ageism-health/"},"headline":"How Ageism Negatively Affects Older People’s Health","datePublished":"2020-01-17T17:41:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T08:04:54.125Z","description":"A study documents the adverse effect that age discrimination can have on longevity, quality of life and mental and physical illness among older people","url":"https://time.com/5767265/ageism-health/","keywords":["Aging","health"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf719151bd4e660c9/698a090122fb85cebce2a7a5/GettyImages-996842948.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf719151bd4e660c9/698a090122fb85cebce2a7a5/GettyImages-996842948.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The wait is long","caption":"The wait is long","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/aging/","name":"Aging"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5767265/ageism-health/","name":"How Ageism Negatively Affects Older People’s Health"}}]}] ```