Self-Reported Health, Well-Being, and COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness Across the Generations

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the generations’ health and wellbeing across a range of dimensions. In the first survey, the 50+ adopted the smallest number of health behaviors (e.g., handwashing, mask-wearing, etc.) in response to the pandemic compared to younger age groups. In the first and second surveys, the Baby Boomer generation reported less intense worry than other generations, especially regarding their socioemotional health and family members’ health. For younger generations, worries tended to increase from March to June—especially those related to socio-emotional health and COVID-19 in general. In the third survey wave, older generations self-reported better psychological wellbeing, less personal burnout, and better cognitive health compared to younger generations. Willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine did not vary by generation in this sample; however, implications of this (including additional factors that may be influential such as psychological wellbeing) will be discussed.


Jean-Francois Trani, Brown school, Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, United States
Structural and social determinants of health differentially impact on social groups. Among those particularly disadvantaged during the life course are both persons with disabilities and refugees. Because of the way society treats these two populations, both persons with disabilities and refugees may face physical, social, economic and environmental barriers that impede them from benefiting from the same opportunities accessible to other social groups. As a result, these populations have less access to education, higher unemployment, are more likely to be deprived and excluded from social benefits. In other words, public stigma -prejudice and discrimination voiced and practiced by the general population-translates to a life course characterized by daily stressors that result in a higher likelihood of cognitive disorders and dementia. Measuring and analyzing SSDoH inclusive of disability and refugee experiences are essential to efforts aimed at recruitment and retention and knowledge generation in ADRD research.

SSDOH AND AGING IN PERSONS OF AFRICAN ANCESTRY
Joyce Balls-Berry, Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, United States Persons of African Ancestry (Black) encompasses a broad spectrum of individuals across the African diaspora. The diversity of the Black community must be considered in the context of SSDoH especially as it relates to diseases of aging. Blacks report higher levels of discrimination as a barrier to Alzheimer's Disease or related dementia (ADRD) care, are less likely to receive timely diagnoses of ADRD, and many do not trust that a future cure for ADRD will be shared equally and equitability with their community compared to their white counterparts. Once diagnosed, older Blacks, are twice as likely as their white counterparts to have ADRD.
A key to addressing the Black community's ADRD needs is speaking openly about the historical underpinnings related to social injustice and racism as a link to appropriate ADRD diagnoses. Ultimately, SSDoH impact treatment, healthcare policy, and the future of biomedical research for the Black community.

UNDERSTANDING THE ABNORMAL TODAY FOR LIFE TOMORROW: A STUDY OF THE GENERATIONS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Chair: Lisa D'Ambrosio Discussant: Lisa D'Ambrosio
The spread of COVID-19 in the United States in early 2020 abruptly transformed American life, with widespread closures of public spaces and businesses, limitations on social activities, and the need for individuals to physically distance from each other. Some changes wrought by the virus may persist post-pandemic -such as Americans' adoption of new technologies or disease prevention behaviors. Since the onset of COVID-related safer-at-home orders, the MIT AgeLab has sought to understand how the pandemic affects people's attitudes and behaviors. This symposium will present findings drawn from three waves of national, online surveys conducted in 2020: March (N=1202), May-June (N=1,387), and November-December 2020 (N=1444). The surveys explored participants' COVID-19-related attitudes and behaviors across a range of domains. Each presentation in this symposium will highlight a different focus of cross-generational research conducted over time, with a particular focus on experiences of adults ages 55 and over. The first will focus on participants' overall health, wellbeing, and perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine. The second will present experiences of family caregivers of older adults and children. The third will center on the impact of the pandemic on the generations' retirement and longevity planning experiences. The fourth and final presentation will focus on participants' attitudes and experiences using and adopting technology. This symposium will deepen attendees' understandings of multigenerational attitudes and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on the experiences of adults ages 55 and over.

SELF-REPORTED HEALTH, WELL-BEING, AND COVID-19 VACCINATION WILLINGNESS ACROSS THE GENERATIONS Taylor Patskanick, MIT, Somerville, Massachusetts, United States
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the generations' health and wellbeing across a range of dimensions. In the first survey, the 50+ adopted the smallest number of health Innovation in Aging, 2021, Vol. 5, No. S1 behaviors (e.g., handwashing, mask-wearing, etc.) in response to the pandemic compared to younger age groups. In the first and second surveys, the Baby Boomer generation reported less intense worry than other generations, especially regarding their socioemotional health and family members' health. For younger generations, worries tended to increase from March to June-especially those related to socio-emotional health and COVID-19 in general. In the third survey wave, older generations self-reported better psychological wellbeing, less personal burnout, and better cognitive health compared to younger generations. Willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine did not vary by generation in this sample; however, implications of this (including additional factors that may be influential such as psychological wellbeing) will be discussed.

PERCEPTIONS AND IMPACTS OF COVID-19 ON FAMILY CAREGIVERS Alexa Balmuth, MIT AgeLab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
For many family caregivers, COVID-19 has presented new obstacles to providing elder-care while balancing additional responsibilities such as work or childcare. Three survey waves explored impacts over the course of the pandemic. Family caregivers demonstrated resilience, taking a variety of measures to care for and protect family; caregivers were also more confident in their ability to protect loved ones age 60+ from contracting COVID-19 than non-caregivers. However, COVID-19's toll on caregivers was evident. Caregivers reported higher personal burnout than non-caregivers, and across all three survey waves, consistently reported greater degrees of worry in regards to COVID-19 in general, as well as its impacts on domains including the health and wellbeing of themselves and family members, and near and far term finances. This presentation will highlight how caregivers' perceptions and impacts of COVID-19 have evolved over the course of the pandemic, and implications of these findings for life tomorrow. Among its many downstream effects, the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced how people think about and interact with technology. With limitations and restrictions around in-person interactions and use of public spaces, people are increasingly relying on technology to support everyday activities including work, communication and care. Results from the survey series showed an increased adoption of and interest in home, health and communication technologies. The changes may be long-lived, with the majority of the new adopters saying that they will continue to use the technologies that they started using in response to the pandemic. A generational comparison showed that while baby boomers and the silent generation were less likely than younger adults to have made recent adoptions, the older generations did not significantly differ in terms of interest in using new technologies. This presentation will also report on how COVID-19-related changes in technology experience varied by other demographic and socio-economic characteristics.

THE INFLUENCE OF COVID-19 ON RETIREMENT AND LONGEVITY PLANNING: A MULTIGENERATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Julie Miller, 1 Martina Raue, 2 and Lisa D'Ambrosio, 3 1. MIT,Cambridge,Massachusetts,United States,2. MIT AgeLab,Cambridge,Massachusetts,United States,3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Cambridge,Massachusetts,United States For many, the COVID-19 pandemic has painted a new economic picture of longevity. Results from the series demonstrated that younger generations surveyed-Gen Xers, Millennials, and Zoomers-generally reported elevated levels of worry about how the pandemic would affect their long-term finances. Baby Boomers, by comparison, evinced significantly less worry. And, although the pandemic has had a disproportionate economic impact on lower-income individuals, a higher income did not appear to confer freedom from worry. When it comes to planning for longevity, worry can be paralyzing. Zoomers were the generation most likely to agree that the future is too uncertain for them to even think about planning financially for retirement, and this sentiment applied for other generations as well. This presentation will also describe other ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic had influenced respondents' perceived longevity preparedness and attitudes across a variety of demographic and socio-economic characteristics.

UNIQUE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FROM TWO ONLINE PSYCHOSOCIAL RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIALS
Chair: Carol Musil Co-Chair: Britney Webster Discussant: Rachel Pruchno Research aimed at testing readily delivered online psychosocial interventions for addressing the needs of custodial grandfamilies (CGF) has been scarce. This symposium reports on two NIH-funded randomized clinical trials (RCT) involving fully online interventions: Study 1 (S1)-dyadic social Intelligence training for custodial grandmothers and their adolescent grandchildren, and Study 2 (S2)-4 week resourcefulness training with daily journaling intervention for grandmothers only. We presented here on the unique advantages and challenges of online RCTs as they apply to CGFs and similar hard-to-reach populations. First, in a cross-study collaboration, Jeanblanc et al. report data from both studies on how COVID-19 influenced coping habits, grandchild's remote learning, household conflict, uncertainty, and finances. Second, Castro et al. investigate how baseline positive and negative affect were reported in daily diaries completed by both grandmothers and grandchildren across 14 days at pretest in S1. Third, Musil et al. describe the challenges and benefits of using an entirely online design