On July 26, 2023, The Washington Post featured insights from AFAR Senior Scientific Director Steven N. Austad, PhD, and AFAR board member S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, on the role of biological and chronological age in the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election.
“I don’t think, unless something dramatic comes out during the campaign, that age will be a major factor,” stated Dr. Austad, referencing recent reports of good health in both Biden and Trump.
Dr. Olshansky agreed, adding in a warning about relying on probability models as primary criteria when deciding on a candidate. “If you zero in on the survival probabilities, you are always going to pick someone younger because their probability of living is higher,” he stated.
The article also spotlights ‘Longevity and Health of U.S. Presidential Candidates for the 2020 Election,’ an AFAR whitepaper authored by Dr. Olshansky exploring the healthspans of U.S. presidential candidates in the 2020 election. Read the whitepaper here.
Read the full article in The Washington Post here.
Dr. Austad is the Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research and a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the founding director of UAB’s Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, and co-director of the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research, as well as the Co-Principal Investigator of the Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center.
Dr. Olshansky is an AFAR board member and 2016 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction recipient. He is currently a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Research Associate at the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Chief Scientist at Lapetus Solutions, Inc.
