The Sightlines Project investigates how well Americans are doing in each of the three areas that are critical to well-being as people age: financial security, social engagement and healthy living. Do the trends over the last 15 years bode well or do they raise concerns regarding our capacity to thrive as individuals and as a nation?
The findings are based on analyses of eight nationally representative, high quality, multi-year studies over two decades involving more than 1.2 million Americans. The learnings are intended to stir national debate, guide policy development, stimulate entrepreneurial innovation, and encourage personal choices that enhance independent, 100-year lives.
KEY FINDINGS
Healthy Living, defined as avoiding risky behaviors (smoking, excessive drinking, drug use, etc.) and making healthy choices day to day (eating well, exercising, etc.), is known to be beneficial. Americans have made substantial progress in several areas, while others challenges remain or have actually increased.
Most surprising:
- Smoking –the top preventable cause of morbidity and early mortality – is declining in every age group.
- For the first time in decades, more Americans are exercising regularly. More than half of Millennials (ages 25-34) are getting the recommended amount of exercise.
- Sitting, which has emerged as an independent risk factor for health, is steeply increasing.
- Problems with diet and sleep are widespread and show no signs of abating.
Financial security across the life span is a growing challenge for longer lives. Financial security has deteriorated from 2000 to 2014, particularly among the least educated, who are more likely to live at or near poverty, lack emergency resources, and are less likely to invest in their financial futures.
Most surprising:
- A 15-year decline in health insurance coverage among the most vulnerable (those without high school education) has reversed since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, decreasing the likelihood that the financial security of those in this group will be decimated by a health event.
- Millennials (adults ages 25 to 34) are facing uphill struggles. The incomes of the less educated are often at or near poverty levels while those who went to college are 50% more likely to carry debt and the average debt in this group is 5 times higher than their predecessors carried just 15 years ago.
- Fewer Americans (two out of three) establish retirement savings plans before age 55. Among those who are ineligible for employer-based plans, only one in three is participating in a plan.
Social engagement, central to long and healthy lives, includes both meaningful relationships and participation in communities. Social engagement is declining along many traditional indicators. It is too soon to tell whether new forms of technology-mediated social engagement – SMS, chat, facetime, posting and tweeting – are providing social benefits and how they complement face to face engagement.
Most surprising:
- With the exception of 35-44 year olds, community engagement has declined. Interactions with neighbors – who represent physically-accessible and often helpful relationships – are becoming less common.
- Compared to their counterparts only 20 years ago, members of the Baby Boom generation, are less likely to be married, have weaker ties to family, friends, and neighbors, and are less likely to engage in religious or community activities.
- Longer lives mean that marriages survive as well. Fifty-three percent of Americans over 75 are married, up from 42 percent in 2003.
http://sightlinesproject.stanford.edu./overview.html
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