Volunteer and healthy ageing: the case of mentoring disadvantaged youth

In this blog, Dr. Giovanni Aresi and Dr. Raven H. Weaver will discuss the societal benefits of volunteering among older adults, specifically reflecting on being a mentor for disadvantaged youth. Although mentoring has been considered as a positive youth development intervention, there has been much less attention on the effects on older volunteer mentors’ well-being.

Healthy ageing as a key priority for our society

Individuals are living longer than ever before, posing a challenge in respect of increased risk of developing physical and mental illness, but also creating new opportunities for older adults to remain socially engaged with and contribute to society. The WHO defines healthy ageing as “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age”.1 Having the capacity to remain engaged allows for lifelong learning, growth, agency/decision-making, and development of relationships – all of which contribute to society. Continue reading

  1. World Health Organization. Ageing and life-course. Available from: https://www.who.int/ageing/healthy-ageing/en/. []

Embracing a cultural perspective into Prevention Science

In this blog, Dr Giovanni Aresi will discuss some reasons why adopting a cultural perspective is important for prevention scientists.

The 2018 conference was the first time I came in contact with the European Society for Prevention Research (EUSPR). As I have done (so far) little in terms of preventive intervention development, implementation and evaluation, I was actually unsure whether or not my work on alcohol drinking cultures (i.e., schema of beliefs, practices, and values maintained by a cultural group or society regarding alcohol use) would fit into the scope of the EUSPR. I was therefore very surprised when I learnt that I was awarded the 2018 early career award for outstanding promise based on poster presentation. On second thought, in a socio-ecological perspective, culture is an important level of influence to health outcomes, and therefore needs to be taken into consideration during all stages of intervention. This makes culture an important object of interest for EUSPR members. Continue reading