TY - CHAP A1 - Hu, Rongbo A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Schmailzl, Marc A1 - Güttler, Jörg A1 - Lu, Yuan A1 - Bock, Thomas ED - Tateyama, Kazuyoshi ED - Ishii, Kazuo ED - Inoue, Fumihiro T1 - Exploring Gerontechnology for Aging-Related Diseases in Design Education: An Interdisciplinary Perspective T2 - Proceedings of the 37th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC 2020): From Demonstration to Practical Use, To New Stage of Construction Robot, October 27-28, 2020, Kitakyushu, Japan N2 - Aging society is not only a crisis in the developed world but also a severe challenge in some emerging economies. However, the awareness of population aging and gerontechnology is far from sufficiently addressed in the architectural design education in universities. Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach in design education is urgently needed to raise the awareness of the aging crisis among the future architects, interior designers, and beyond. This article introduces a novel model of a design seminar offered by a German University, addressing population aging issues in the architecture department. The syllabus, formality, and the expected results of the seminar are revealed in detail. The participants are encouraged to apply interdisciplinary knowledge such as barrier-free architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, medicine, psychology, and business to achieve the goals of the seminar. Based on the originality and degree of completion, several students' works are selected and reported, targeting a variety of diseases or syndromes related to aging, such as dementia, immobility, and tremors. Overall, participants of this seminar are motivated and have positive feedback on this seminar, oftentimes claiming that they have seldom studied similar topics in previous architecture education. This enables students from architecture as well as other fields to be better prepared to tackle the upcoming challenges such as labor shortages and infectious diseases in a rapidly aging world. Furthermore, the seminar creates novel concepts that serve as a win-win "honeypot" for both students and their instructors, potentially sparking research topics and start-ups with concepts fostered in this seminar. KW - aging-related diseases KW - Bauhaus 2.0 KW - COVID-19 KW - Dementia KW - Design education KW - Gerontechnology KW - Interdisciplinary Y1 - 2020 SN - 978-952-94-3634-7 U6 - https://doi.org/10.22260/ISARC2020/0102 SP - 735 EP - 742 PB - The International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction (I.A.A.R.C.) ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pit, Sabrina A1 - Fisk, Malcolm A1 - Freihaut, Winona A1 - Akintunde, Fashola A1 - Aloko, Bamidele A1 - Berge, Britta A1 - Burmeister, Anne A1 - Ciacâru, Adriana A1 - Deller, Jürgen A1 - Dulmage, Rae A1 - Han, Tae Hwa A1 - Hao, Qiang A1 - Honeyman, Peter A1 - Huber, Peter C. A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Lundberg, Stefan A1 - Nwamara, Mofoluwaso A1 - Punpuing, Kamolpun A1 - Schramm, Jennifer A1 - Yamada, Hajime A1 - Yap, Jason C. H. T1 - COVID-19 and the ageing workforce: global perspectives on needs and solutions across 15 countries JF - International Journal for Equity in Health volume N2 - BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has a direct impact on the employment of older people. This adds to the challenge of ageism. The World Health Organization has started a worldwide campaign to combat ageism and has called for more research and evidence-based strategies that have the potential to be scaled up. This study specifically aims to identify solutions to combat the adverse effects of COVID-19 on the global ageing workforce. METHODS: We present 15 case studies from different countries and report on what those countries are doing or not doing to address the impact of COVID-19 on ageing workers. RESULTS: We provide examples of how COVID-19 influences older people's ability to work and stay healthy, and offer case studies of what governments, organizations or individuals can do to help ensure older people can obtain, maintain and, potentially, expand their current work. Case studies come from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, South Korea, Thailand, United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Across the countries, the impact of COVID-19 on older workers is shown as widening inequalities. A particular challenge has arisen because of a large proportion of older people, often with limited education and working in the informal sector within rural areas, e.g. in Nigeria, Thailand and China. Remedies to the particular disadvantage experienced by older workers in the context of COVID are presented. These range from funding support to encouraging business continuity, innovative product and service developments, community action, new business models and localized, national and international actions. The case studies can be seen as frequently fitting within strategies that have been proven to work in reducing ageism within the workplace. They include policy and laws that have increased benefits to workers during lockdowns (most countries); educational activities such as coaching seniorpreneurship (e,g, Australia); intergenerational contact interventions such as younger Thai people who moved back to rural areas and sharing their digital knowledge with older people and where older people reciprocate by teaching the younger people farming knowledge. CONCLUSION: Global sharing of this knowledge among international, national and local governments and organizations, businesses, policy makers and health and human resources experts will further understanding of the issues that are faced by older workers. This will facilitate the replication or scalability of solutions as called for in the WHO call to combat ageism in 2021. We suggest that policy makers, business owners, researchers and international organisations build on the case studies by investing in evidence-based strategies to create inclusive workplaces. Such action will thus help to challenge ageism, reduce inequity, improve business continuity and add to the quality of life of older workers. KW - Aged KW - Aging KW - Communicable Disease Control KW - COVID-19 KW - Humans KW - Quality of Life KW - SARS-CoV-2 KW - United States KW - Workforce Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-021-01552-w VL - 20 SP - 1 EP - 22 PB - Springer Nature ER -