促进老年人在灾害情境中的参与：专刊简介

在全球范围内，极端事件的激增和人口老龄化的加剧给国际社会的全面发展（如社会、卫生和经济）带来了持续而严峻的挑战（Dee 2024）。过去20年来，全球气候和环境相关灾害已造成超过130万人伤亡，超过44亿人受伤、无家可归和/或需要紧急援助，直接经济损失总额接近3万亿美元（UNDRR 2018）。不断上升的人力和经济成本迫使国际社会优先考虑增强灾害恢复力。此外，联合国（UN 2019）报告称，全球65岁及以上成年人口将从2019年的9%增长到2050年的16%，几乎翻倍。希腊、韩国和日本等一些国家的增长速度甚至更快，老龄化率高于全球平均水平（World Economic Forum 2020）。

与许多其他弱势和边缘化人群类似，老年人受到灾害的影响尤为严重（Wu 2020）。这迫切需要世界各地的学者一起行动并激励大家共同努力为这一人群服务。尽管灾害科学和相关学科（例如老年学、社会工作和社会学）的需求日益迫切和不断增长，但当前针对灾害的研究、实践和政策主要集中在老年人作为弱势群体、被动群体和需要照料的群体的普遍假设上，而不是承认他们的多样性、专业知识、价值和经验（Kwan and Walsh 2018）。老年人的巨大优势（例如，终生经验、知识、人脉和网络）可以在整个灾害和紧急情况周期中显著推进与灾害相关的工作，并增强个人、家庭、社区和社会层面的灾害恢复力（Campbell 2019）。更好地了解老年人的价值（个人和集体）、现有资源和可行的干预措施，并采用综合视角来共同满足老年人因灾害而产生的需求，并为针对老龄化的健康和社会政策提供信息，可以进一步促进老年人在社区层面的参与并做出贡献。这种认识对于设计以经验为导向的战略和合作干预措施，以促进实证研究和确定新的研究-实践方向和伙伴关系至关重要。

有关灾害情境中老年人的研究文献经常将他们视为被动的受害者，很少涉及他们对建设灾害恢复力的实际和潜在贡献。目前关于受COVID-19影响的老年人的相关研究成果也是如此（Petretto and Pili 2020）。很少有文献和研究实践关注老年人的灾害恢复力与针对灾害的工作之间的交集。这些知识缺陷以及对实践、政策和教育的相关影响威胁着老年人针对灾害的社区参与，危害着他们的健康和整体福祉，并最终削弱个人和集体的灾害恢复力。

本专刊针对以上提到的相关知识缺陷，与全球的专业领域人士合作，重点关注关键知识、创新实践和针对老年人的灾害政策，以吸引全球范围内受众（包括学者、从业人员、相关的直接服务提供者、大学生和政策制定者）对老年人灾害情境中参与这一话题的兴趣。本专刊以九篇文章中的知识为基础，旨在创造新的机会，促进老年人在灾害情境中的领导作用，为改善对老年人友好的服务提供信息，并加强老年人在当前COVID-19恢复工作中的恢复力，特别是在全球灾害激增的情况下。

Promoting Older Adults’ Engagement in Disaster Settings: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Haorui Wu, Christine A. Walsh, Julie L. Drolet & Kyle Breen 

Introduction：

Globally, surging extreme events and the escalating aging population present ongoing and severe challenges to the full spectrum of international community development (for example, social, health, and economic) (Dee 2024). Over the past 20 years, climate-induced and environmental disasters worldwide have caused over 1.3 million casualties and left more than 4.4 billion people injured, homeless, and/or in need of emergency assistance, with total direct economic losses approaching USD 3 trillion (UNDRR 2018). The rising human and economic costs have compelled international communities to prioritize resilience enhancement. Furthermore, the United Nations (UN 2019) reported that the global population of adults aged 65 and older will almost double from 9% in 2019 to 16% in 2050. Some countries, such as Greece, Korea, and Japan, have an even faster aging rate than the global average (World Economic Forum 2020).

Older adults, similar to many other vulnerable and marginalized populations, are disproportionately impacted by disasters (Wu 2020). This presents a vital necessity to connect scholars worldwide and stimulate joint efforts to serve this population. Despite the pressing and growing needs in disaster science and related disciplines (for example, gerontology, social work, and sociology), current disaster-specific research, practice, and policy have mainly focused on generalized assumptions of older adults as a vulnerable, passive, and dependent group, rather than recognizing their diversity, expertise, assets, and experiences (Kwan and Walsh 2018). The considerable strengths of older people (for example, life-long experience, knowledge, connections, and networks) can significantly advance disaster-related efforts through the entire disaster and emergency cycle and foster resilience capacity at individual, family, community, and society levels (Campbell 2019). Better understanding of older adults’ assets (individually and collectively), existing resources, and promising practice interventions and adoption of an integrated perspective to collectively address older adults’ disaster-driven needs and inform aging-specific health and social policies can further promote older adults’ community engagement and contributions. This understanding is vital for designing empirically-driven strategies and collaborative interventions to promote evidence-based learning and identify new research-practice orientations and partnerships.

Literature regarding older adults in disaster settings has frequently treated them as passive victims, rarely addressing their actual and potential contributions toward building resilience. The same exists with current scholarly outcomes regarding older adults affected by COVID-19 (Petretto and Pili 2020). A paucity of literature and practice examines the intersections between older adults’ resilience capacity and disaster-specific efforts. These knowledge deficits and associated impacts on practice, policy, and education threaten older adults’ community engagement, jeopardize their health and overall well-being, and, eventually, diminish individual and collective resilience capacity.

Responding to the knowledge deficits and collaborating with international professionals, this special issue was developed to focus on critical knowledge, innovative practice, and older-adult-driven disaster policies to engage older adults in disaster settings that are of interest to international audiences, including academics, practitioners, direct service providers, university students, and policymakers. Building on the knowledge from nine articles, this special issue aimed to create new opportunities to foster older adults’ leadership in disaster settings, inform improvements in age-friendly service delivery, and strengthen older adults’ resilience in the current COVID-19 recovery in particular, and surging global disasters in general.

文章链接：

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13753-024-00559-5