News

Stay up to date with the latest news affecting older people in Auckland and across Aotearoa.

At Age Concern Auckland, we curate relevant articles, updates, and stories on topics like elder wellbeing, healthcare, housing, community services, and policy changes. Check back regularly for fresh content that matters to seniors, their whānau, and caregivers.

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News

Yesterday

Research suggests difficult people contribute to chronic stress and elevate biomarkers linked to ageing

This from the Hearald: Spending time with a difficult person can impact your mood in the moment. But over time, these challenging social interactions might also have a detrimental effect on your physical health, possibly making you age faster, new research suggests.

The study, which was funded by the National Institute on Ageing and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at the health impacts of “hasslers” – people the researchers defined as those “who create problems or make life more difficult”.

While positive relationships have long been linked to healthier, longer lives, hasslers seem to have the opposite effect, increasing chronic stress and elevating epigenetic biomarkers associated with ageing.

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10 Mar

'Grey washing': SuperGold Card discounts skip entire regions

SuperGold Card holders are finding it difficult to cash-in on weekly supermarket discounts with a mish-mash of locations, leaving some regions missing out entirely with patchy coverage in others.

Age Concern chief executive Kevin Lamb called it an example of "grey washing".

For example, the SuperGold Card was accepted at grocery stores in most central business districts, but not in Gisborne, Marlborough Nelson, Tasman, West Coast districts nor the densely populated Auckland CBD, with a fast-growing resident senior population of more than 2000 people.

"It is portraying themselves as supporting older people, but doing what I would call the bare minimum in order to achieve that," Lamb said.

"If you're going to say that SuperGold Card gets a discount in our stores, why wouldn't you do that for every store? Not just cherry pick a handful of stores around the country and have such a lack of consistency about where those stores are located."

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5 Mar

History In Making As Governments Draft A Legally Binding Treaty For Rights Of Older Persons

Scoop World brings this story: This is indeed a historic first when governments come together to draft a legally binding possible treaty to protect the human rights of older persons. The first ever historic Inter Governmental Working Group (IGWG) meeting to protect the rights of older persons was held recently. IGWG was created by the UN Human Rights Council in April 2025 and given the mandate to draft a legally binding UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.

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