Introduction:
Geriatricians are not adequately represented in national panels, health department guidelines, and the lay press.1 People, from numerous non-geriatric medicine fields, produce podcasts, promote products, and provide advice on aging issues which may be uninformed by expertise.
We sought to better understand the aging-related content and backgrounds of experts portrayed by a leading national online lecture, TED Talks. TED talks are freely distributed under the slogan “ideas worth spreading” and are available on multiple platforms: Ted.com, YouTube, Podcasts.2 They are immensely popular, with the videos having been viewed more than a billion times online. Speaker backgrounds vary widely and include Nobel and Pulitzer Prize, Oscar, Grammy and Emmy winners. It is important to distinguish between TED and TEDx Talks. TED is developed on national platform while TEDx is set up by local volunteer organizers without national supervision. Quality control has been a major issue as speakers are not always fully vetted (e.g., non-medical speakers providing medical advice). Unvetted speakers have reached both TED and TEDx stages but it is believed more frequent with TEDx as quality control lies solely in the hands of the local event organizers.3
Methods:
We performed a search of all aging-related content produced by the TED Talk media and communication platform, from Oct. 2006 to Dec. 2021. Search terms included: aging, aged, seniors, older adult, geriatrics, geriatric medicine, geriatrician. We selected TED Talks (national) but excluded TEDx (local) Talks. The rationale was two-fold: 1.) We anticipated better vetting of speakers from national group. 2.) National cohort would reflect more generalizable findings instead of local subject-promoting enthusiasts. Data was collected examining:1.) content of lecture, 2.) number of views, 3.) date of activity, 4.) speaker, 5.) presented background. When background was unclear, we utilized LinkedIn profiles for further clarity. Descriptive frequencies were utilized for viewership. Qualitative analysis of lecture content (pertinence to aging-related or geriatrics) and presenter background was conducted using constant comparative thematic analysis between two coders with a third coder available for tiebreak.4
Results:
Using the search terms of “aging”,” seniors”, and “geriatrics”, 60 TED talks were determined to provide relevant geriatrics related content. Thematic analysis revealed major themes of 1.) Delaying aging/living longer (e.g., roadmap to end aging, living to 100 years), 2.) Wisdom from aging (e.g., How to live passionately no matter your age), 3.) Testing for age-related diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s) 4.) Cures to common age-related diseases (Alzheimer’s disease, vision loss, arthritis), 5.) Older adult finance, 6.) Dying and Hospice. Among speakers, there were no board-certified geriatricians and only one palliative care certified physician. Backgrounds varied widely and included writer, actors, activist, filmmaker, molecular biologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, lawyer, philosopher. (Table 1) Healthcare professionals included neurologist, neuroscientist, developmental psychologist, and palliative care physician.
Table 1:
TED Speaker Background Themes and Examples
| Speaker Background Themes | Example | TED Talk |
|---|---|---|
| Entertainment | Painter | How loss helped one artist find beauty in imperfection |
| Business | Smart product inventor | My simple intervention, designed to keep my grandfather safe |
| Education | Education innovator | An unexpected place of healing |
| Science (PhD) | Molecular Biologist | The science of cells that never get old |
| Author | Futurist, academic, author | What will humans look like it 100 years? |
| Healthcare | Palliative Care Physician | What we can do to die well |
| Other Professional | Lawyer | A new way to think about inheritance |
Discussion
Among aging-related content in popular TED talks, no board-certified geriatricians have been tapped to provide expertise. Although capable nationally-renown geriatricians are available, most speakers are not from medical backgrounds and have unclear expertise in aging. This lack of geriatrics expertise may negatively impact age-friendly care, and adversely affect older adults if misinformation is followed. It is unclear if geriatricians are applying to speak at TED talks, but through word of mouth, several have applied.5 There are also fewer geriatricians than other occupations (e.g., entertainment, journalism) which might account for the higher representation from other fields.
From a content perspective, many topics were focused on avoiding aging altogether or finding cures instead of living with or treatments. While this might be increase viewership, it is not realistic to the tenets of geriatric medicine.6 In addition, multiple topics could have potentially been presented by a geriatrician, displaying overlap in abilities (e.g., neurologist vs geriatrician).
Limitations existed in that we examined national TED talks and not TEDx talks or TEDMed; therefore, geriatricians may have presented locally but not captured. TEDMed was an annual health-related speaking venue, active from 2009–2020, operating separately under license from TED Conferences. The majority of TEDMed talks have a lower viewership with under 10,000 views compared to TED talks which often have a million or more views. On our review of TEDMed, there were only three geriatricians who presented, with only one speaking on aging-related issues (Dr. Louise Aronson; Embracing elderhood as a stage of life) and the other two discussing obesity and population health.7 Another limitation is that our results may not be representative of other media outlets including podcasts (e.g., GeriPal.org) which may have a higher rate of geriatricians and geriatrics-related content.
In conclusion, multiple online platforms, such as TED talks, have emerged to disseminate geriatrics-related content. Unfortunately, geriatricians have not been utilized fully and the resulting misinformation from non-geriatrician sources may be harmful to broad audiences. Platforms like TED Talks, YouTube, and TikTok are important for geriatricians to delve into as well as continue to be a strong presence on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.8–10 It is important that geriatricians are encouraged to be a strong presence in popular media to offset ill-informed messages regarding the health of older adults.
Acknowledgements
Funding:
This research is supported through grants from the NIH/NIA P30AG059988. Disclaimer: All statements in this manuscript, including its findings and conclusions, are solely those of the authors.
Sponsor’s Role:
The sponsor was not involved in the design, methods, analysis and interpretation of the data, and preparation of the manuscript.
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest: All authors declare no conflict of interest
These research results were selected and reported as an oral presentation at the American Geriatrics Society 2022 Annual Meeting (Orlando, FL).
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