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CSDE Seminar: Stepping Out of Your Cultural Zone: Gentrification, Aging in Place, and the SHARP Study

Speaker: Raina Croff

Abstract: Black Americans are disproportionately vulnerable to gentrification and to cognitive decline, including Alzheimer’s disease, because of historical and ongoing systemic inequities. Dr. Croff examines the impact of gentrification on healthy aging among minoritized older adults, looking specifically at how aging in place within gentrifying neighborhoods may exacerbate risk factors for cognitive decline. Amidst erasure of Black spaces and elevated health risks for older Black people, it is critical to develop culturally celebratory ways to preserve health and history. The Sharing History through Active Reminiscence and Photo-imagery (SHARP) study aims to do this through integrating walking, conversational reminiscence, and technology in Portland, Oregon’s historically Black neighborhoods, and is now being replicated in Seattle’s Central District. Alongside promising health outcomes, SHARP community focus groups and walking narratives give voice to the older Black experience of aging, gentrification, cultural incongruence, and community displacement.

May 27, 2022 12:30 PM in Pacific Time (US and Canada)