Short answer of each questions

1. In the article Disparity in Life Spans of the Rich and the Poor is Growing by Sabrina Tavernise, the author points out that rich people are getting richer and living longer. In 1970s the life expectancy between the wealth and middle class in men was around 1.2years. This means that a wealthy man in the 1970s lived 1.2 years longer than the middle class man. From data recorded in 2001, the gap jumped from 1.2 to 5.8. Now if we are talking about the very rich and the very poor, there is about a 10 year gap life expectancy between them. The very rich live about 10 years more than the very poor. This life expectancy gap also effect women, the data in the article shows the same idea. The gap in life expectancy for wealthy to poor women jumped from 4.7 to 14 years. In the article, researchers believed the rich were living longer because they were more educated on the unhealthy habits that they once participated in, for example smoking. Sabrina Tavernise points out that smoking “Accounted for a third to a fifth of the gap in life expectancy between men with college degrees and men with only a high school diploma. The article also states the use of prescription drugs “ravaged poor white communities that would most likely exacerbate the trend of widening disparities. Obesity was another concern but as data shows both the poor and rich have around the same percentage of obesity, 31 % of rich people were obese round 2010 and 37% of poor people were obese around 2010.

Q 1. You would think with the new technological development, better media coverage on health, and resources the gap would be closing but it’s not its actually getting bigger.What are some reasons you may think the wealthy live longer than the poor? Why is the gap in life expectancy growing as time goes on?

Q 2. In the article, Tavernise talks about poor men actually have the lowest mortality rate in Canada. Why do you think? Do you think other well developed countries face this same issue?

2. His article was discussing what life course analysis was and how it affected the study of people as not just stages but a journey. The definition of life analysis course given in the article was "examining the entirety of an organism's experience, from embryo to death, the temporal and contextual factors that influence growing older and the continuity and discontinuity over time." The article talks about how gerontology is evolving into a field that studies the whole life processes as a way to better care for and prevent frailty and illnesses for the elderly. The main ideas of life analysis course are 1.aging is a life long process, from embryo to death, involving multiple transitions, 2. the experience of aging varies across historical time and place which basically means that factors like where a person's environment affects the way they age and 3. Lives are shaped by the timing of events and exposures which means that the events that happen in one's life also helps mold the way they age and their view on it. There are three approaches to applying life analysis course 1. Early origins of early adult health: prospective study of the life course which means that studying a person's health history and their habits like if they smoked or drank alcohol excessively in their early adulthood can help get proper treatment and assessments for those who need it. 2. Centenarians: exceptional longevity which means studying people of advanced age to see what led to their longevity. The optimal study would be to study from embryo stage to over 100 years old but there are of course many factors that inhibit that from happening. 3. Family Lineage: intergenerational clues to aging which is studying generations in families to see if there are genetic links to longevity or illnesses. Taking the life analysis approach not just helps with illnesses and treatments, but it also helps humanize patients as not just a patient or a number, but as someone who neess help continuing on their life journey.

Q 1. Does people's habit of oversimplifying people or putting them into categories affect the way we age? How important is it to think of people in terms of their life courses? What can we do to change the habit? What's your take on life analysis course?

3. In chapter 5 “Heterogeneity”, it starts off by discussing whether the older generations are still capable of a change. Whether these changes are behavioral or acceptance to learn new things. The author strongly believes that not being able to learn new things does not make one old but aging occurs from heterogeneity of the older population. Having the same age does not mean that they have many things in common and rather there may be greater heterogeneity with advancing age. Scholars have found tremendous variability in functional limitations among the elders. At a later age, even among the similar age group, there are many diversity. While some are functionally disabled, another person at the same age might be professionally playing a sport. The author mentions that there are many reasons why there is so much late life heterogeneity. One of them is because there is no other socially recognized period of life span with such a large range of chronological ages. We divide the early stages of life as infancy, childhood to adolescence but there is none for adulthood. I believe the author wants to strongly suggest that there must be examinations and studies on all ages and groups in order to find the correct term of aging in different ways they can age. That by knowing different ways people age in certain groups it will help the overall health of everyone.

Q 1. The author mentions that aging should be studied not only by age but that they age through different experiences in their life, meaning everyone ages differently and in a different time. How much and what kind of different experiences will it have an impact on aging ? Such as from different environment, families, education, work or even religion. how can theses different experiences change a persons aging even if they are at the same age?

Q 2. The author says we have to study different ways people age and what impacts the aging even after a person becomes an adult. Do you really think studying how adults age in the later life will have an impact on giving people a better way of aging and better health?