![]() ![]() You want to say ‘it’s not all downhill,’ that older people are a resource and a tremendous wealth in our society. “Some people are fit and productive and still capable of working and looking after the grandkids. “It’s always a tightrope when you’re talking about ageing,” Julie says. ![]() “These women talk about how busy they keep, how they have friends – and one of them said ‘I think this is the secret of ageing well’.” Accentuate the positive “The women would say things in the survey like, ‘I’m not the average 70-year-old’ but they are! In fact, we’ve got the average wrong,” Julie exclaims. ![]() Most of us want to live a long time, but we also want to live well.” When you think about the life they’ve lived, you realise that we can learn a lot from these people. “A lot of people think that with life expectancy being around 84.5 years there’s no need to study older people – but that’s when it gets interesting - these people are the true survivors. This rich vein of information from the participants drew Julie in and has maintained her focus over the past 20 years. “I read all those comments and it was totally captivating.” There were 12,432 women in this cohort, and around 7000 of them wrote on the backs of their surveys: “And they wrote a lot!” Julie exclaims. Participants in the study have the opportunity to add any additional information they feel is important on the back of the survey. I started off by looking at the simple tick-a-box cross-sectional data, but then I started to look at what the women had written on the backs of their surveys,” Julie says. “I was interested to see what was happening in their health data. However, while this middle-aged cohort seemed compelling, Julie was drawn to the lesser-explored 70 – 75 year age bracket and so she decided to delve into their responses. “These women were dealing with a range of interesting health issues such as managing menopause and problems with periods along with issues in the workforce and I thought it would be interesting to look at balancing the necessities of healthcare and women’s health more generally,” Julie says. This study explores three cohorts of women: those aged 18 – 25, 46 – 51 and 70 – 75 and at first, Julie was drawn to the middle cohort. The role involved looking at the effectiveness of preventative health assessments for older people, so I just picked it up,” Julie explains.Īt the same time, Julie was also involved in the establishment of the ground-breaking Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH). “After completing my PhD I took on a new job in clinical epidemiology and when I joined the team there was an opportunity to work with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Unlike geriatrics, which focuses on treating diseases in older adults, gerontology explores social, psychological, cognitive and biological aspects of ageing.Ī series of fortunate events led Julie into her current field of research. Julie’s research focus is on how people can age well, with an eye to understanding the factors that influence and promote healthy ageing. To gerontologist, Professor Julie Byles, they’re the people we should be learning from. To some, older people, and older women in particular, are invisible. Director of the Centre for Women's Health Research, Professor Julie Byles studies women aged 70 years and up - and says we have a lot to learn from women of a certain age. ![]()
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