GERONTOLOGY THAT USES QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHOD

Gerontology that uses Qualitative research method

Journal article Gerontology that uses Qualitative research method

Introduction

The given study is based on the interview of the two individual who were least 60 years of age. Both of them explianed their vbiews which are ghiven below in the form of a report. In recent years ethnogerontology has emerged as a critical new field of study in gerontology. This area (also known as minority gerontology or minority aging) focuses on the racial, ethnic, and cultural processes of aging and the aged and the problems of social inequality in an aging society.

A major concern is this field is the absence of a core knowledge base on minority populations and the lack of relevant theories and research applicable to these groups. Over the last 10 years minority aging has received growing attention in the field of gerontology. More recently, a new field has emerged in social gerontology, termed ethnogerontology, which focuses on the "causes, processes and consequences of race, national origin and culture on individual and population aging . . . and the documentation of social inequities between dominant and minority aged" populations (De Grey, Aubrey; & Rae, Michael, 2007). Its development evolved slowly, particularly among scholars and researchers who adhere to the view that aging is a universal phenomenon and that people, regardless of racial, ethnic, or cultural background, generally experience similar aging processes in later life.

An Interview with Dr. Leonard Hayflick

Dr. Hayflick is an elegant speaker of 60 yearx old. I was excited to hear firsthand about his discoveries, and greatly appreciated his patience in answering questions that I'm sure he's answered a thousand times before, making sure that I understood every detail. We spoke about how the fetal cells that he cultured were used for viral research, vaccine production, cancer research and the causes of aging, and why he thinks that researching the causes of aging is more important than directing biomedical research efforts to the study of disease.

Q: What inspired your interest in the biology of aging?

Dr. Hayflick: My interest in the biology of aging was a pure accident; it evolved from a discovery that I made in the early 1960s. The discovery that I made flew in the face of existing dogma at the time—dogma that was entrenched for more than sixty years—and because I was convinced that I had overthrown that dogma, the experiments that I did required some explanation, or at least some speculation as to what they meant. After conducting a number of experiments that excluded many possibilities that seemed reasonable, I was left with one possibility that I could not exclude, and that was that the observation that I had made was telling me something about longevity determination and/or aging. So I speculated on that possibility in the paper that I published with my colleague, Paul Moorhead, in 1962.

Q: Describe your physical activities?

Dr. Hayflick: Yes, to paraphrase a cliché, a day without exercise is like a day without ...