The Yale School of Nursing (YSN) opened the new Center for Aging Well Thursday. The school says the new center is designed to be a global hub for research and precision medicine across the lifespan.
Azita Emami, dean of YSN, said the center would seek to redefine the role of nursing.
“Nursing, from the days of Florence Nightingale, has been seen as a profession that provides clinical care to those who are ill,” she said. “We are here today to celebrate a different and very exciting idea, the idea of nursing as a profession that takes the lead in promoting wellness and conducting wellness research.”
The number of Americans ages 65 and older will more than double over the next 40 years, reaching 80 million in 2040, according to the Urban Institute.
As of 2024, older adults outnumbered the number of children in 11 states including Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Dr. Miia Kivipelto, neurologist and the center’s director, said the center’s work will focus on aging well both at the individual and population levels.
“We are bringing together voices from across Yale and around the world to lead science and to translate science into systems to help people live longer, healthier and more meaningful lives,” she said.
And that includes precision medicine.
“We are bringing together AI, genomics, epigenetics, deep phenomics, system biology, with art of nursing and human caring,” said Tatiana Sadak, deputy dean at YSM.
The center’s researchers will work to enable nurses to develop a wellness plan for everyone before symptoms of an illness even appear, Sadak said.
They would do that by sensing “the inevitable tremors in your genome, the code you are born with in your epigenome, the notes that life scribes on the margins and the phenome, the living pattern of your days, your gait, your speech, your mood, your microbiome,” she said.
The center said it would also help reshape conversations around aging.
“Human beings are not defined by their age and diagnosis,” Kivipelto said.
