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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3020
igaa057.3020
Abstracts
Session 7580 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
The Importance of Studying Health Behavior in Older Adults
Hughes Jaime 1 Hughes Susan 2 Raj Mina 3 Bettger Janet 1 1 
Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, United States
2 
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States
3 
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”827 827
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Behavior change is an inherent aspect of routine geriatric care. However, most research and clinical programs emphasis how to initiate behavior change with less emphasis placed on skills and strategies to maintain behaviors over time, including after an intervention has concluded. This presentation will provide an introduction to the symposium, including a review of prior work and our rationale for studying the critical yet overlooked construct of maintenance in older adults. Several key considerations in our work include the impact of multiple chronic conditions, declines in cognitive and functional capacity over time, changes in environmental context and/or social support, and sustainability of community and population-level programs and services.