As planning for this issue of Terra got underway, the Ebola outbreak was capturing attention in medical journals and news reports and across the Internet. There were fears of a pandemic. Previously known only in Africa, the disease had appeared in the United States and Spain. Public health specialists struggled to cut the rate of new infections as scientists worked to fast-track potential therapies.
Aging may be a universal experience, but culture and ethnicity affect how aging relatives fit into the family picture. Latino families, says Carolyn Mendez-Luck, tend to care for their elderly family members at home and delay institutionalization, relative to other racial and cultural groups.
Infectious diseases are not equal-opportunity illnesses. Much depends on location, income and access to clean water, medical care and public health services.
As adults live longer, the challenge of maintaining health through their senior years increases. Differences among individuals become more pronounced and older people may not respond to treatments as they would have when they were younger.
“The wind blew unseasonably bitter the day my sister and I took Mom to her first oncology appointment. As Mom leaned into the gale, her jaunty hat flew up suddenly and whirled away. The hairstyle she’d arranged with such care was defeated.”
Whenever he can, Jan Medlock relies on official sources. He gathers data on infectious disease from the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and government health ministries.