The COVID-19 pandemic that began in the United States early in 2020 has produced many dramatic effects, including fatalities resulting from becoming infected. Another consequence that is attracting some attention is how stigmatization of older individuals has increased as exemplified by extensive press coverage of government officials that appear to devalue older individuals by suggesting they are unworthy of adequate medical care. According to an article published in the April 2022 issue of the The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, recent analyses of Twitter data found that the pandemic has sparked a proliferation of negative-age-stereotype-based comments. These incidents led to an effort to determine whether prevalent negative messaging about aging had a detrimental impact on older individuals’ mental health. The study also considered whether the relatively uncommon positive messaging about aging during the pandemic, such as news reports of older health-care workers who came out of retirement to help sectors overwhelmed by COVID-19, benefited older individuals’ mental health.
Data collection took place between April 23 and May 5, 2020, when stay-at-home pandemic policies were implemented throughout the United States. According to the investigators, this study is the first to demonstrate experimentally that structural ageism, by which societal institutions promote bias against older individuals, can have an impact on their mental health. Specifically, among older individuals, the negative-age stereotype messaging led to more anxiety and less peacefulness than among those exposed to neutral messaging. In contrast, among older individuals, the positive-age stereotype messaging led to less anxiety and more peacefulness than among those exposed to neutral messaging. Interventions in both the negative- and positive-age-stereotype conditions were drawn from actual media reporting about older persons during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study participants exposed to the negative-age-stereotype interventions were twice as likely to report moderate or severe levels of anxiety, compared to those exposed to the neutral conditions. Whereas, those exposed to the positive-age-stereotype interventions were twice as likely to report moderate or greater levels of peacefulness, compared to those individuals exposed to the neutral conditions.