The Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging at the USC School of Social Work will host the 2012 International Conference on Aging in the Americas (ICAA) from Sept. 11-13 at the USC Davidson Conference Center.

The 2012 ICAA will provide an opportunity for scholars involved in the study of Hispanic health and aging to disseminate and discuss current research on a large and growing segment of the U.S. population. According to U.S. Census data, individuals of Hispanic origin are the nation’s largest ethnic/racial minority, and Hispanics over 65 are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. older adult population. Fittingly, the conference will take place during National Hispanic Heritage Month, which celebrates the contributions that Hispanic Americans have made to American society and culture.

“The timing of this conference coincides with a growing urgency to develop more effective research and interventions to address the social and health needs of the rapidly expanding population of people over 65 and the transnational nature of aging among people of Mexican origin, who experience aging within family networks in both countries,” said William Vega, executive director of the USC Roybal Institute and co-organizer of the conference.

The 2012 ICAA—held in partnership with the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB Health)—is the fifth installment of a successful series of meetings exploring the health and aging of Hispanic populations.

The Conference Series on Aging in the Americas (CAA) was established in 2001 at The University of Texas at Austin with the aim of utilizing research to augment knowledge about dimensions of healthful aging for people of Hispanic descent in the United States and Mexico. One of the CAA’s major goals is to promote interdisciplinary collaboration by gathering a broad array of researchers in the fields of health, health care policy, and behavioral and social aspects of aging into a single forum to exchange ideas and foster collaborative efforts aimed at addressing key issues affecting the health of aging Hispanics.

“The conference brings together major scholars in aging research working in distinguished universities and institutes in the United States and Mexico, and provides a unique opportunity to share new findings and advance methods in the field,” Vega said.

“National, international, and comparative studies of Hispanic aging and related methodological challenges” is the theme of the latest conference in the series, which was co-organized by Vega, Kyriakos Markides of UTMB Health, and Mark Hayward of the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Past conferences examined the social and economic causes and consequences of health problems of older Mexican-origin individuals in the United States and in Mexico.

Distinguished presenters include Eliseo Pérez-Stable, an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine; Fernando Torres-Gil, former U.S. assistant secretary for aging and current director of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging and adjunct professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology; Luis Miguel Gutiérrez-Robledo, founding director and director-general of the Institute of Geriatrics at the National Institutes of Health in Mexico; and Eileen Crimmins, American Association of Retired Persons chair in gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health.

The conference will also feature a poster session that will bring together the work of graduate students and emerging scholars that demonstrates how social, psychological and biological factors profoundly impact the long-term health of Hispanics.

For more information about the 2012 ICAA, please visit the official conference website: www.utexas.edu/lbj/caa/2012.