Virtual Collections
A Virtual Collection is a carefully curated, online only section of an issue of The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences focusing on a topic or theme. As part of an online only section, the articles in this section will be published online only (title would appear in a print issue Table of Contents for the journal, but the full article would appear online only). Browse the archive below:
COVID-19 Healthcare Challenges for Older Adults
April 2021
This virtual collection addresses the social impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on aging populations, particularly with regard to ageism that has come to light in the portrayal of the pandemic. Ageism is also apparent in regard to treatment of the most frail and vulnerable older adults, both in health care settings and in long-term care facilities. All of the articles point to issues that are based in preexisting social conditions but are potentially increased by the pandemic.
Health and Well-being among Latinx Older Adults
April 2021
COVID19- Trends, Disparities and Consequences for Older Adults
March 2021
This is the first of three Virtual Collections featuring papers on the pandemic and its implications for older adults. The subsequent Virtual Collections will focus on the themes “Challenges of COVID-19: Ageism, Caregiving Strains, and Long-Term Care,” focused primarily on the United States, and “Global Perspectives on COVID,” featuring papers on Chile, China, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and The Netherlands. This research provides fresh insights into COVID-19 and will inspire future data collection and analysis efforts to understand the short- and long-term impacts of this crisis.
What Can We Learn About Psychological Aging By Studying Covid-19?
February 2021
The threat to the most vulnerable individuals in our population, including the oldest members of society, has been a cause of significant concern since the beginning of this pandemic and will continue to be an important area of heath research. In this special section, we present a series of brief research reports focused on the COVID-19 crisis and its psychological implications for older adults.
Language and Aging
November 2020
The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences
This virtual collection focuses on language function and use in older adults. These articles examine a broad range of questions relating to language and aging, including age differences in language output, links between language and other cognitive domains, and the impact of speaker characteristics such as bilingualism.
APOE and Cognitive Aging
October 2020
The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences
Executive Functioning and Aging
July 2020
The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences
This virtual collection considers the effect of aging on executive function. These articles adopt a variety of approaches, examining what is impacted by aging within the domain of executive function, as well as asking how executive functioning relates to other abilities, and in which populations.
Self Perceptions and Attitudes, Part 2
June 2020
The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences
Disability and Disablement
November 2019
The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences
Neighborhoods and Living Arrangements
October 2019
The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences
Socio-Economic Disparities in Health and Well-being
September 2019
The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences
Late-Life Mental Health
November 2018
The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences
This Virtual Collection focuses on Late-Life Mental Health. Papers shed light on the ways that stressors over the life course including widowhood, military service, discrimination, and housing arrangements affect older adults' mental health symptoms.
Qualitative and Mixed Methods
October 2018
The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences
This Virtual Collection focuses on Qualitative and Mixed Methods, with an emphasis on current applications and future innovations. Papers use qualitative and mixed methods to explore caregiving, medical decision-making, and the impact of neighborhoods on older adults' lives.
Intergenerational Relationships and Influences
September 2018
The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences
This Virtual Collection focuses on intergenerational relationships and influences over the life course. Papers focus both on how adult children affect their aging parents, and how parent-child relationships shape adult children's outcomes. Specific studies explore how adult children's education affects their aging parents' health, gender differences in the links between parent-child ties and older parents' cognitive health, and how early-life parental favoritism affects adult children's mental health decades later. The studies extend beyond the U.S., with one paper showing how intergenerational living arrangements affect older men's and women's disability in rural South Africa.
Elder Abuse and Mistreatment
July 2018
The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences
This Virtual Collection focuses on abuse and mistreatment over the life course. These articles show how mistreatment over the life course. These articles show how mistreatment in childhood affects adult children's relationships with their aged parents decades later and how these patterns are shaped by the adult child's caregiving responsibilities for the abusive parent. One of the featured papers uses sophisticated quantitative methods to identify distinctive subtypes of elder abuse perpetrators.
Long Term Care
May 2018
The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences
Our debut Virtual Collection focuses on long-term care, and features quantitative and qualitative studies focused on long-term care insurance, race and marital status disparities in long-term use, the social support networks of assisted living facility residents, the impact of formal long-term care on caregiver well-being, and Medicare spending on different types of long-term and end-of-life care. These papers focus on both the U.S. and international contexts, and suggest important implications for long-term care policy and practice.
