I’ve heard the question so many times from people interested in cogenerational programming: “Are young people really going to show up to connect with older people?” We know, from our nationally representative study with NORC at the University of Chicago in 2022, that...
Purpose Prize
The Latest from CoGenerate
Want to Recruit Younger People? Look Within
For the past five years, I’ve been working as an advocate for the causes I believe in and for more intergenerational collaboration. Young people like me want more opportunities to work across generations for change, but we also want to be treated as equals. To...
What Young Leaders Want — And Don’t Want — From Older Allies
We know from our nationally representative study with NORC at the University of Chicago in 2022 that 76% of Gen Z and 70% of Millennial respondents wish they had more opportunities to work across generations for change. In a new report, What Young Leaders Want — And...
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David Schwartz
Purpose Prize Fellow 2006
After his mother died of fall-related injuries, former state legislator David Schwartz, 67, became passionate about preventing geriatric falls and founded ElderCare Companies.
After his mother died of fall-related injuries, former state legislator David Schwartz, 67, became passionate about preventing geriatric falls and founded ElderCare Companies.The organization’s goal is to reduce the incidence, severity, and costs of geriatric falls in all 50 states. Eleven million older Americans fall every year with 1.8 million sustaining serious injuries. To reduce that number, Schwartz created a fall prevention program that provides counseling about fall risks, conducts group workshops, distributes monthly reminders of preventative measures, and develops a support system tool that disseminates risk reports to an elder’s family, friends, doctors, and pharmacists.In a recent project in South Florida, ElderCare was able to reduce hospitalizations for falls by more than 50 percent and nursing home admissions by 65 percent among 6,000 low-income elders. Projects in New York and Philadelphia yielded similar results. ElderCare will expand to ten more states over the next few years, and Schwartz is negotiating with HMOs to adopt the program.