Home > All articles Older Americans spend time with the television Americans who are 75 years old were born in the midst of the Great Depression (four years after the 1929 stock market crash) and one year before the Social Security Act was passed in 1934. This perspective helps tell the story behind the statistics captured in "Older Americans 2008: Key Indicators of Well-Being." The 38 indicators covered in this collection of data from 15 federal agencies are categorized into five broad areas: population, economics, health status, health risks and behaviors and health care. This year's report contains new sections of particular interest to those in the active-aging field. The proportion of leisure time that older Americans spent socializing and communicating-such as visiting friends or attending social events-declined from 13% in those ages 55 to 64 to 10% for people 75 years and over. On an average day, most Americans ages 65 and older spent at least half of their leisure time watching television. Americans ages 75 and older spent a higher proportion of their leisure time reading, relaxing and thinking than did those ages 55 to 64. There was no significant change in the percentage of older people engaged in physical activity between 1997 and 2006. The average level of health literacy-the extent to which people can obtain, process and understand basic health information and services-decreased with age. Thirty-nine percent of people ages 75 and over had below-basic health literacy, compared with 23% of people ages 65 to 74 and 13% of people ages 50 to 64. Although the data showed that most older people lived in adequate, affordable housing in 2005, 41% of households with people over age 65 had significant housing-related problems, such as housing cost burden (expenditures on housing and utilities that exceed 30% of household income), physically inadequate housing and crowded housing. The prevalence of housing cost burden for households with people age 65 and over increased from 30% in 1985 to 38% in 2005. SOURCE: National Institute on Aging (March 27, 2008) & http://www.icaa.cc   By K.S. Date 14-04-2008 Print this article | Send to a friend | React to this article