Definition
Ageism in healthcare refers to “negative or positive stereotypes, prejudice and/or discrimination against (or to the advantage of) health care users on the basis of users’ chronological age or on the basis of a perception of users as being ‘old,’ ‘too old,’ ‘young’ or ‘too young.’ Ageism can be self-directed or other-directed, implicit or explicit and can be expressed on a micro, meso or macro-level” (adapted from São José et al. 2017: 375).
Overview
Research on ageism in healthcare expanded significantly at the turn of the millennium, especially over the last decade. The vast majority of the studies were carried out in Europe (mainly in the United Kingdom) and North America (mainly in the United States) and have been mainly concerned with measuring the prevalence of ageism and, to a lesser extent, its manifestations. Two major research objectives have been...
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de São José, .M.S. (2019). Ageism in Healthcare. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_587-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_587-1
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