By Lawrence Carter-Long exploring aging, disability, and whole health for Older Americans Month 2026.
Lawrence Carter-Long is a recognized expert on disability representation in media. He has collaborated with organizations including Sundance, NPR, the BBC, and Disney+, written for outlets like The Atlantic and USA Today, and spoken at institutions such as the United Nations and the Library of Congress. He served as communications lead for the National Council on Disability from 2011 to 2017, and is the Director of Engagement for ReelAbilities International.
The 2026 Older Americans Month theme is “Champion Your Health.” How can people apply this theme to their goals, independence, and pursuit of whole health?
As I’ve lived it, I would say that championing one’s health is not about performing somebody else’s abstract or idealized idea of independence. I’ve discovered, through time, that it actually requires the opposite approach.
That means getting real about the messy, uncomfortable stuff and committing to paying attention, protecting one’s energy, and preventing what we can. It also means insisting on care that is competent, continuous, considerate, and funded like it matters, rather than piecemeal which is what we’re doing now.
As we’ve learned from deconstructing the medical model of disability, health is so much more than a medical metric or abstract measurement. It’s a complicated, complex combination of many things: pain management, sleep, support systems, transportation, housing, work, movement, and mental health. It also depends on whether the systems that surround you make thriving more possible or more punishing.
Those deeper questions reflect what we prioritize in society, what we pay attention to, and they deserve more attention than the powers that be generally afford them.
What are some of your favorite resources or practices for wellbeing and self-care that you would like to share with others?
I’d like to give a little context first, because it seems to me that health and aging are always personal as we live it, but never purely private. For me, wellbeing lives at the crossroads of daily disciplines and what should be durable supports.
Those daily disciplines look like:
- Pacing, prevention, and paying attention
- Protecting my peace
- Resting before I collapse
- Movement that is more adaptive than abrasive
- Respecting and responding to pain without shame
- Treating mental health as health
Consistent practice depends on durable supports: the resources, relationships, and structures that make follow-through possible. Community, public policy, planning, and preparation all have pivotal parts to play. Misplace one piece or remove the wrong one, and the danger of collapse increases. Whatever your political persuasion, whatever your definition of wellbeing might be, I’d be willing to bet that the closest metaphor should never be a synonym for Jenga.
Recently, someone asked me how many people I know who are older than I am and living with the same disability. At 59, I realized I could only think of a couple of people I’m actually in contact with. That was striking, and it underscored to me how important it is to create more opportunities for peer connection and shared experience as we age.
People aging with disabilities deserve the same standard of care as anybody else. Resources like cerebral palsy foundations, Area Agencies on Aging, Centers for Independent Living, and adult healthcare initiatives are useful because they keep in view things like adulthood, transition, accessible homes, and work environments—those messy, practical realities like employment, therapy, housing, and assistive technology.
Our needs continue to change as we age, but we’re often expected to do self-care without changing the systems we find ourselves subject to and to go it alone. Our work, as I see it, is increasingly about bridging personal experience and public policy, thinking of those things together and speaking or writing about them in the same sentence.
What parallels do you see between the aging and disability communities, and how do you see disability and aging intersecting in your life and work?
Overall
Both communities are too often spoken for rather than listened to. Both know what it’s like to be underestimated, overmanaged, and treated as problems to solve rather than sources of wisdom, insight, and perspective.
Aging and disability are not separate entities. They’re parallel, often interlocking, and should be in the same conversation Too often, we treat them like neighboring countries and forget they share a border.
In reality, too many people are left in that space—abandoned, unprepared, and stuck because of poor planning, or worse yet, denial.
In media/culture
Aging and disability still get flattened into monochrome stories—decline, burden, pity, or, if you’re “lucky,” inspiration. None of that reflects reality. Most people live somewhere in the messy middle, and those stories are still largely untold. We need fuller portraits and a broader spectrum. Real people are funny, frustrated, inventive, and contradictory. We need to see more of that. All of it. Stories that are intimate and alive.
There are some examples:
- El Cochecito (1960), where a wheelchair becomes a kind of chariot of independence in a dark, funny, and unsettling way
- Harold and Maude, with a vibrant 79-year-old protagonist
- Thelma, where a 93-year-old sets out to reclaim what was stolen from her
But these are still few and far between.
What we need:
- Fewer cautionary tales
- More complicated protagonists
- Stories that disrupt expectations
If I had to put it simply: fewer funeral dirges and more jazz.
Older adults and older disabled people should not be a footnote in the storytelling—they should be central to it. After all, aging and disability are a natural part of life.
In advocacy spaces
There is real collaboration happening now, especially through networks and organizations, but we need to move from occasional partnership to more of a sustained infrastructure. That means stronger intergenerational exchange, cross-training across sectors, expanded mentorship, and disabled people and older adults shaping policy and research from the beginning. Too many people are still navigating adulthood and aging with little preparation and too few informed providers. We can do better.
To achieve this, we also need:
- Cross-training between aging and disability providers
- Better preparation for adulthood
- More informed providers
- Mentorship models where disabled people and older adults help shape policy and research
Peer sharing and support is not a side note, nor is it extra. It’s infrastructure.
Disability communities have different needs, but there are common goals: Better housing, education, employment, social connection, and volunteer opportunities.
We can achieve shared goals without losing what makes each community unique. There has been fear of erasure, which makes sense given history, but we also have the opportunity to do it differently and do it better.
How do you see aging and disability communities collaborating currently? Any great ideas you’d like to see happen in the foreseeable future?
There is real collaboration happening now, especially through networks and organizations, but we need more of it.
We need:
- More depth and support
- More disabled and aging leadership
- More imagination
Future ideas include:
- Stronger intergenerational exchange
- Cross-training across sectors
- Expanded mentorship programs
- Including disabled people and older adults in shaping policy and research
Too many people are still navigating adulthood and aging with little preparation and too few informed providers. We can do better. Just as importantly, as a starting point or foundation, championing one’s health does not mean you carry the burden alone or do everything yourself.
Any additional thoughts you’d like to share in recognition of Older Americans Month?
There are a couple of things we haven’t touched on.
A few lessons that disability can offer if we embrace it are:
- Adaptation doesn’t equal defeat.
- Access isn’t extra. It should be a foundation, a basic baseline.
- Becoming informed gives us an edge. It gives us more tools. More info. Ignorance isn’t bliss, especially when adaptation is your new normal. Too many folks try to hang on to a status quo that never was to their detriment.
Disabled people often learn early how to adapt, revise routines, and use tools without shame. We learn to ask better questions and lean into reality rather than deny it.
Healthy aging needs to make room for that mindset: Flexibility, awareness, and adaptation instead of denial or just endurance.
Independence doesn’t have to be a synonym for lonely. There’s no reason it can’t be more communal. Something that factors in evolving decision making, support systems, caregiver roles, and community partnerships.
My own relationship with cerebral palsy has changed as I’ve aged. It isn’t what it was at 15 or even at 50—and nothing and no one prepared me for that. The point isn’t to cling to who we used to be, but keep evolving. Being more honest with ourselves.
Final reflection
Experts have been forecasting my demise since the day I was born, quite literally, so I don’t take getting older lightly. It is something many of my colleagues, peers, and familiars (think: your bestie, pet, or sherpa) never got to do. That doesn’t make aging easy, or automatically noble, or something to romanticize. But it does make it worth taking seriously on several fronts — as a responsibility, a reality, and an opportunity to keep adapting with as much honesty as we can muster.
If there’s one thing I think I’d like readers to think about, it’s this: We need to start earlier and talk about these issues more often.
This isn’t about rushing people. It’s about reducing rupture. It’s about building fluency before supports disappear. As bodies, minds, and needs change we need to change with them. That means our thinking—and the supports we fight for—must change too.
That process should start earlier, because once you begin to notice the changes, you understand that the work of adapting never truly ends. Whether that work riddled with friction or flows with fluency depends on how we relate to it, and whether the world around us adapts to embrace inevitable change as well.