Conclusions and Recommendations for Policies on Rural Aging in the First Decades of the 21st Century

Abstract

The 2000 Forum on Rural Aging: Policy Debates was one of the main tracks of the first International Conference on Rural Aging held in Charleston, W.Va., in June 2000. The 2000 Forum was a follow‐up to the Expert Group Meeting on Rural Aging, which met at Shepherdstown, W.Va., in May 1999. That group considered policy implications of the 1999 International Year of Older Persons for rural aging in four key areas: the situation of older people, multigenerational relationships, lifelong development, and the development and aging of rural populations. As a direct follow‐up of the Shepherdstown Expert Group Meeting, the 2000 Forum on Rural Aging formulated the Conclusions and Recommendations for Policies on Rural Aging through a series of working groups. The Conclusions and Recommendations were endorsed by the Conference Plenary Session on June 11, 2000. The Draft Recommendations for Policies on Rural Aging were available for comments on the Internet in the remaining part of the year 2000. Many comments were received. Hana Hermanova and Sally Richardson incorporated the comments into the finalized version.