Alzheimer's disease and related dementias place an enormous burden on individuals, families, health and long-term care systems, and governmental budgets. As the burden escalates with rising prevalence, attention has increasingly focused on how the risk of developing dementia can be reduced. Evidence indicates there are ways, from a population perspective, to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and possibly dementia, including through healthier lifestyles. It is imperative that the public health community lead the effort to address modifiable risk factors and social determinants of health for dementia and promote healthy aging through public health action.

The Veterans Health Administration's Medical Foster Home (MFH) program is a long-term-care model in which veterans requiring personalized nursing home-level care live in the homes of private caregivers, who are recruited and screened by a VA MFH program coordinator. Often, these caregivers are older adults who are nearer to or older than retirement age. Seven years of research into the program has shown benefits in building community and improving quality of life for veterans, caregivers, and family members of veterans living in MFHs across the United States.

LGBT older adults are a heterogeneous population with collective and unique strengths and challenges. Health, personal, and economic disparities exist in this group when compared to the general population of older adults, yet subgroups such as transgender and bisexual older adults and individuals living with HIV are at greater risk for disparities and poorer health outcomes. As this population grows, further research is needed on factors that contribute to promoting health equity, while decreasing discrimination and improving competent service delivery.

LGBTQ older adults have higher levels of psychological distress as compared to older adults in general. They also experience multiple barriers to accessing equitable, culturally competent mental health and aging services because of their distinct histories and particular social contexts. This article discusses this lack of access to services, and highlights an innovative way mental health services are being delivered in LGBTQ communities.

Despite growing racial and ethnic diversity among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) older adults in the United States, LGBTQ older adults of color largely are invisible in aging services, research, and public policy. GRIOT Circle and Caring and Aging with Pride are pioneering efforts in community-based services and research. This article describes innovative and effective ways to reach and serve LGBTQ older adults of color, how research can be designed collaboratively to address strengths and disparities in social, health, and economic well-being, and barriers to accessing aging services in these populations.

There has been much speculation around the aging of the Baby Boom Generation because they were at the forefront of turbulent social changes in women's roles, marriage, and childbearing. This article addresses the ways in which population aging is intertwined with family change, and how intergenerational relations in later life are being transformed by social and demographic changes. Increasing diversity of family types and potentially weaker family ties raise the possibility of challenges to come in the next century.

To achieve optimal, equitable health outcomes for all older adults, the United States desperately needs equity in access to, quality of, and cost of aging care. To illustrate these needs, we discuss the current inequitable state of frailty care. Frailty disproportionately affects marginalized populations, yet these populations struggle to access high-quality geriatrics care and long-term care services and supports (LTSS) that mitigate frailty, leading to accelerated frailty trajectories. Health services research can provide the data needed to document, elucidate, and address health inequities in frailty care, including early identification and referral of frail adults to specialized care and financing LTSS.

A model community-based outreach program overcomes barriers to screening and case identification of vulnerable older adults in psychiatric distress.

As the global population is aging, increased efforts should be placed on preventing mental disorders in older adults, as opposed to just focusing on sickness and treatment. We provide an overview of existing innovations in prevention in the domains of pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and psychosocial interventions. These programs have shown that depression and anxiety can be prevented from recurring, incidence of new disorder can be reduced, and general mental health can be promoted. We also give direction for future research to move the field of geriatric mental health prevention forward.

Elder mistreatment is an important public health problem that can be prevented. By investing in upstream prevention and taking a multigenerational approach, the U.S. can help create communities where older adults are safe, thriving, and living out the remainder of their lives free from abuse and exploitation. The need to do so has never been more pressing as the U.S. is on the precipice of historic population changes that could place a substantial burden on families, communities, and systems of care and protection for older adults. This article describes these changes and how public health efforts can make a difference.

This article draws on investigations by its authors, and from American and Italian interventions to provide recommendations for decreasing social isolation in older adults for policy makers, researchers, and other professionals committed to supporting the improved social integration of older adults. The article argues that to mitigate social isolation it is critical to foster a sense of belonging (personal involvement in a system or environment so people feel they are an integral part of that system or environment). Suggestions are provided on how to leverage systematic interventions to foster isolated older adults' sense of belonging to their communities.

Indigenous older adults are a diverse and growing population that is not equitably included in gerontological research and continues to experience disparate health outcomes in later life. Resolving structural inequities endured by Indigenous peoples across the lifespan using existing policy mechanisms will only be possible if we better develop our theoretical frameworks to include Indigenous perspectives and develop research agendas that center minoritized aging populations. We illustrate this approach by proposing modifications to Title VI of the Older Americans Act and the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act.

This article profiles a program in Detroit, MI, funded by the National Institute on Aging, called the Michigan Center for African American Aging Research and its key offshoot the Healthier Black Elders Center (HBEC). Board members of its Community Advisory Board weigh in on key programming and offer perspectives and recommendations on health and social issues. The HBEC Consulting Program is a blend of formal volunteering and paid work through consulting fees. The article also outlines next steps for HBEC.

Older women living with HIV are an especially vulnerable population due to their experience of multiple stigmas resulting from intersectional identities. Using an intersectional convoy model to conceptualize social relations, we consider how HIV-related stigma, age, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic position shape access to support resources through personal networks. We briefly review existing research on how intersecting identities and structural inequities might influence the structure, composition, and function of support networks among older people with HIV. Potential applications of the intersectional convoy model and implications for research and practice are discussed.

In this article, Guest Editor Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen interviews Barbara Satin, a transgender woman with a national leadership role in the United Church of Christ. Satin addresses the history, challenges, and hopes for LGBT older adults seeking sanctuary in modern faith communities as they age.

The African-American Brain Health Initiative at Rutgers University-Newark is a university-community partnership combining community engagement, education and training, and brain health research. Partnering with community-based organizations, it promotes brain health literacy, Alzheimer's awareness, brain-healthy lifestyle choices, and participation in brain research for older African Americans in Greater Newark, New Jersey. Our approach to recruitment relies on building trust through long-term relationships; communicating health knowledge through trusted community leaders; recruiting subjects through targeted efforts; and cultivating research participants as ambassadors.

Between the ACA, innovative strategies to create a new type of workforce, and technology, we have a chance to redesign healthcare to adequately address physical and mental health.

The opioid crisis directly connects to elder abuse: grandparents may be caring for grandchildren of parents addicted to opioids; and family members, caregivers, and older adults may misuse opioids. The Elder Justice Act, the Older Americans Act, the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981, and the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act dictate responses to such opioid misuse. The Administration for Community Living, the Administration on Aging, the Office of Community Services, and the Department of Justice administer these laws. This article describes the laws, their status, and programs these agencies authorize.

The IMPACT Collaboratory is a national infrastructure and resource dedicated to transforming dementia care in real-world environments for millions of Americans and their care partners, using embedded pragmatic clinical trials. This new approach of applied clinical research holds the promise of accelerating the science of dementia care, improving relevancy of interventions to real-world partners, promoting health equity, and closing the gaps between research, everyday clinical practice, and lived experiences of people living with dementia and their care partners.