Centre for Policy on Ageing



Sexual activity in middle to later life — better health leads to frequent, good quality sex in older adults
Author(s)	Patricia Goodson
Journal title	British Medical Journal, vol 340, no 7746, 13 March 2010
Pages	pp 544-545
Source	www.bmj.com doi: 10.1136/bmj.c850
Keywords	Sexual activity ; Middle aged ; Older people ; Good Health ; Social surveys.
Annotation	This is an editorial on research conducted by Lindau and Gavrilova featured within this issue of BMJ. Goodson comments that such research on this component of ageing is welcome, given the paucity of search results using the BMJ's archives on the terms 'sexuality' and 'older adults'. More importantly, the study bears good news given the ageing population. However Goodson notes that there is a gender gap in sexually active life expectancy which favours men. Even this research attests that, "particularly little has been known about the quality of older women's sexual lives". There are other issues including cultural and structural factors such as familism, social class, differing sexual orientations, that need to be taken into account in future research, so as to gain a fuller understanding of ageing and sexuality. Meanwhile, this study has contributed "to a better sense of how much sexually active life lies ahead as we age". (KJ/RH).
Accession Number	CPA-100325201 A
Classmark	BIU: SE: B: CD: 3F *
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.