About
Our Mission
To promote lifelong health and well-being through scholarship that fosters curiosity, partnership, and inclusion.
Shaping the Future of Aging
The Center for Healthy Aging (CHA) is a research community committed to shaping a society that fosters independence, ensures security, and instills purpose in all individuals, regardless of age.
In a historic shift projected to occur by 2034, the number of individuals over 65 is expected to exceed the population of children and young adults below 18. By 2050, the number of centenarians in the U.S. -- people 100 years of age or older -- will increase by over 500% to 378,000. This increase in longevity is dramatically reshaping our society in ways that will impact our economic structure, our approach to healthcare, and how we manage long-term care and disability needs. But we’re also not prepared culturally.
Researchers, students, and community partners in the Center for Healthy are working to realize our vision of a society that cultivates independence, security, and purpose for every person throughout their entire life.
History
Established in 1973 as the Penn State Gerontology Center, the center quickly became a leading hub for pioneering research and scholarship. In 2010, it became the Center for Healthy Aging, reaffirming a commitment to lifelong physical, social, and mental well-being through comprehensive research, education, and outreach.
The center’s dynamic community includes interdisciplinary faculty, administrative and research staff, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers from various colleges. Together, this group embarks on groundbreaking studies that integrate biology, genetics, and social sciences. The faculty focus on topics including change across the lifespan, the impact of stress on health, and the role of policy in shaping the aging process.
Through scholarship that nurtures curiosity, partnership, and inclusion, the Center for Healthy Aging strives to promote lifelong health and well-being.
- See our history timeline!
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1940: The agriculture and home economics faculty conducted projects on well-being of elderly pension recipients, retirement planning, and nutritional needs of the elderly.
1950: University President Milton S. Eisenhower appointed the faculty Committee for the Study of Adulthood.
1952: Penn State offered its first course in Gerontology.
1973: President John W. Oswald formally established the Gerontology Center as a part of the College of Human Development.
1970s: Joseph H. Britton directed the Gerontology Center for its first ten years, consolidating graduate and undergraduate training programs throughout the University with funding from the College of Human Development, the Administration on Aging, and the National Institute on Aging. Consistent with the priorities of a major land-grant university, extensive programs in continuing education and in the cooperative extension service for practitioners and community service groups were developed during his leadership.
1980s: After Dr. Britton’s retirement, Dr. Gerald McClearn served as interim director of the Gerontology Center, managing the critical transition to a research focus. The quantity and diversity of research in aging increased dramatically with this change.
1985: K. Warner Schaie is appointed director of the Gerontology Center. Under his leadership, the Center built a strong research portfolio in developmental psychology, cognitive aging, and longitudinal data collections such as the Seattle Longitudinal Study.
2003: Melissa A. Hardy is appointed director of the Center. Under her direction, the mission of the Gerontology Center was extended to the development of partnerships for interdisciplinary and cross-college research. New projects integrated biology and genetics with social and behavioral science research and emphasized the study of aging throughout the lifespan, but particularly from mid-life through old age.
2009: Martin J. Sliwinski is appointed director of the Center. Research in the Gerontology Center addressed longitudinal approaches to measurement and analysis, the study of change, the connection of stress to health in diverse contexts, and the role of social policy in framing the experience of aging.
2010: The center is renamed “The Center for Healthy Aging.”
University Park, PA 16802
healthyaging@psu.edu
(814) 865-1710
