Mission
The mission of the Life Course Center is to address critical challenges of our times through interdisciplinary scholarship and public engagement that promote social participation, equity, health and well-being at all ages and life stages.
Research Snapshot
LCC Member Julia Drew and her co-author, Dongjuan Xu, an assistant professor of nursing at Purdue University, study the distribution, trends, and consequences of injuries and falls for older adults to understand the consequences of aging for population health in the US. Injuries and falls are preventable, yet common, and can lead to severe consequences. They have two published papers on this subject and one under review. Read their work in Injury Prevention and The Gerontologist.
Why a Life Course Center?
A life course approach is about time, age, biography, and history—the dynamics and inequalities of women’s and men’s pathways, perspectives, health, and well-being as they play out in work, family, educational, health, community, policy, and comparative locational contexts. Transformational demographic, technological, socioeconomic, and cultural changes are upending existing institutions undergirding the conventional life course, while simultaneously exacerbating multiple dimensions of disadvantage. Interdisciplinary life course scholars can address the human meaning of these dislocations and disadvantages, as well as necessary policy innovations to promote social engagement, social welfare, health and well-being.
GOALS
- Provide a learning community around life course scholarship and training
- Foster intergenerational educational experiences
- Understand lives, contexts, and social change through interdisciplinary longitudinal research
Upcoming Events
DECEMBER 4, 2019
In Search of Effective Strategies for Promoting Physical Activity in Older Adults: Research in Progress
Siobhan McMahon
All LCC Seminars are open to the public and include refreshments.
In the News
"The Generational Divide at Work"
MPR News, November 27, 2019
"Microsoft Proved a Four-Day Workweek Improved Productivity in Japan. Can Its Results Translate to the U.S.?"
Fortune, November 24, 2019
“How to Combat Ageism in the Workplace"
MPR News, October 11, 2019
"When do Americans retire?"
WCCO, July 8, 2019