The many faces of health, competence and well-being in old age: integrating epidemiological, psychological and social perspectives

The main aim of the book is to provide an interdisciplinary treatment of a set of key issues of current ageing research, i.e., health, competence, and well-being. These key issues are addressed based on three converging research streams: social-ecological research, which assumes that major processes and outcomes of ageing such as day-to-day competence are shaped by social and physical-spatial environments, geropsychology research, which is driven by a life-span developmental conception of ageing, and epidemiology, which offers most fundamental disease, function and prevention-related data. Each of the three major research directions are outlined by a short introduction, followed by three chapters treating in an empirical manner most recent key research questions. All chapters are then also discussed by renowned ageing experts. This volume links ageing research with policy considerations and implications and establishes a link between European research and the knowledge base of the international scientific community concerned with ageing. This book will be of great interest to scholars and graduate students in ageing research, in the social and behavioural field as well as in epidemiology, geriatrics, geropsychiatry, demography, and biogerontology.