Advancing Geriatrics and Healthcare in a Rapidly Aging World: Integrative Perspectives from Biology, Environment, Mind, and Society

The launch of Geriatrics and Healthcare, a peer-reviewed and open-access journal, comes at a pivotal moment in global demographic history. Population aging is no longer a phenomenon confined to high-income countries and has become a universal transformation, reshaping societies, health systems, and intergenerational relations across the globe.1 Increases in longevity, combined with sustained declines in fertility, have altered age structures at a speed and scale unprecedented in human history.2 By mid-century, people aged 65 and older will comprise roughly one-sixth of the world’s population, with the fastest growth occurring in low- and middle-income countries.1 This demographic reality demands new scientific syntheses, innovative policy thinking, and interdisciplinary scholarship that transcends traditional boundaries between biology, medicine, psychology, sociology, economics, and environmental sciences. Geriatrics and Healthcare is founded precisely to meet this need. Dedicated to advancing research and practice in geriatrics, aging, and healthcare for older populations, the journal seeks to disseminate innovative research, clinical advancements, and evidence-based practices that improve health outcomes and quality of life in later life. The journal seeks to offer a global, inclusive, and interdisciplinary platform for advancing knowledge on aging and later-life health. It places particular emphasis on diversity across contexts, mechanisms, and lived experiences, and on bridging scientific discovery with real-world clinical practice, technological innovation, and policy applications. Rather than viewing aging solely through a biomedical or deficit-oriented lens, the journal embraces a holistic perspective that recognizes older adults as biologically complex, psychologically adaptive, socially embedded, and environmentally situated individuals. Its scope includes clinical geriatrics, chronic disease management, geriatric pharmacology and polypharmacy, and palliative and end-of-life services within integrated, multidisciplinary models. It also covers research on health systems and policy, social determinants of aging, and age-friendly environments, along with emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, digital health, and smart aging systems for older adults. The journal conceptualizes health in later life not simply as the absence of disease, but as a dynamic equilibrium involving intrinsic capacity, functional ability, social participation, and supportive environments.3 The inaugural issue embodies this vision, presenting six articles that span multiple levels of analysis: from molecular theories of aging to a comprehensive framework for promoting older adult wellbeing amid the climate crisis; from empirical studies on climate-related health risks and injuries to psychological mechanisms underlying fear of falling, including qualitative accounts of living with chronic illness in resource-constrained settings, and culminating in a comprehensive conceptual framework for productive aging. Together, they illustrate both the diversity of contemporary gerontological inquiry and the unifying questions that animate the field: Why do we age the way we do? How do environments shape health trajectories in later life? What psychological and social mechanisms mediate vulnerability and resilience? And how can societies better harness the potential of longer lives while reducing inequality and preventable suffering? This Editorial situates each contribution within the broader landscape of aging research, highlights its collective significance, and outlines key directions for future scholarship and policies.