The goal of this commentary is to highlight the ageism that has emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 20 international researchers in the field of ageing have contributed to this document. This commentary discusses how older people are misrepresented and undervalued in the current public discourse surrounding the pandemic. It points to issues in documenting the deaths of older adults, the lack of preparation for such a crisis in long-term care homes, how some ‘protective’ policies can be considered patronising and how the initial perception of the public was that the virus was really an older adult problem. This commentary also calls attention to important intergenerational solidarity that has occurred during this crisis to ensure support and social-inclusion of older adults, even at a distance. Our hope is that with this commentary we can contribute to the discourse on older adults during this pandemic and diminish the ageist attitudes that have circulated.

The progressive aging of society, caused by profound demographic changes, brings with it the necessity of confronting the subject of biases against the elderly. Ageism, in fact, can influence society’s attitudes regarding this population, in addition to impacting the self-perception of elderly people. This, in turn, has consequences for positive outcomes during the aging process. The current research aims to investigate the simultaneous relationships between knowledge, age, anxiety about aging, and stereotypes toward the elderly, as well as their predictive roles with respect to ageism. A self-report questionnaire was administered to 886 participants, with an average age of 35.8 years (Standard Deviation—SD = 14.2), predominantly female (64.8%). Descriptive and correlational analyses were performed, along with structural equation modeling. Based on the analyses conducted, anxiety about aging and knowledge are antecedents for stereotypes, which in turn, together with the other variables, influence ageism. Increased education about the aging process could help reduce anxiety and stereotypes against the aging among those who are most responsible for prejudice against the elderly. Knowledge of the antecedents of prejudice toward the elderly is fundamental to promoting positive attitudes toward them.

In light of rising concern about the coronavirus pandemic crisis, a growing number of universities across the world have either postponed or canceled all campus and other activities. This posed new challenges for university students. Based on the classification proposed in the Mental Health Continuum model by Keyes, the aims were to estimate university students’ prevalence of mental health during lookdown outbreak, and to examine the associations between mental health and, respectively, academic stress, self-efficacy, satisfaction for degree course, locus of control, COVID-19 risk perception, taking into account the level of information seeking about pandemic. Overall, 1124 Italian university students completed a self-report questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive and correlational analyses. Results showed that 22.3% of participants were flourishing, and levels of mental well-being appeared in line with normative values in young Italian adults; levels of academic stress were not significantly higher than those found in other student samples before the COVID-19 outbreak. Students with high levels of information seeking presented higher levels of well-being and risk perception. Results could be considered useful to realize training pathways, to help the university students to improve their well-being, post-pandemic.

In the face of emergency situations, such as a global pandemic, individuals rely on their personal resources, but also on community dimensions, to deal with the unprecedented changes and risks and to safeguard their well-being. The present study specifically addresses the role of individual resources and community dimensions with reference to academic communities facing COVID-19-related lockdowns and the changes that these have implied. An online questionnaire was administered to 1124 Italian University students. It detected their sense of belonging and of responsible togetherness with reference to their academic community through community dimensions, their student self-efficacy as an individual resource, and their academic stress—potentially stemming from studying in the middle of a pandemic. A multiple mediation model was been run with structural equation modeling. The results show that both the community dimensions associate with higher student self-efficacy and the sense of responsible togetherness, while also associating with lower academic stress. Moreover, student self-efficacy, in turn, associates with lower academic stress and mediates the relationships between both community dimensions and students’ academic stress levels. From these findings, the protective role that community dimensions can exert on an individual’s life becomes apparent. Building on this, further strategies should be implemented to reinforce personal and community resources in order to strengthen individuals against potentially stressful circumstances.

For almost two years, populations around the globe faced precariousness and uncertainty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Older adults were highly affected by the virus, and the policies meant to protect them have often resulted in ageist stereotypes and discrimination. For example, the public discourse around older adults had a paternalistic tone framing all older adults as “vulnerable”. This study aimed to measure the extent to which perceived age discrimination in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the sense of loneliness and social isolation, fear and perception of COVID-19 risks, had a negative effect on older adults’ mental illness. To do so, a self-report questionnaire was administered to 1301 participants (average age: 77.25 years old, SD = 5.46; 56.10% females, 43.90% males). Descriptive and correlational analyses were performed, along with structural equation modelling. Results showed that perceived age discrimination in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic positively predicts loneliness and also indirectly predicts mental illness. In addition, loneliness is the strongest predictor of mental illness together with fear of COVID-19 and social isolation. Such results highlight the importance of implementing public policies and discourses that are non-discriminating, and that favour the inclusion of older people.