Journal of Loss and Trauma

Loss and Transformation Identified within the Aging Process

Background on Research Area

Various forms of loss are experienced across the lifespan; however, their meaning, accumulation, and consequences often intensify in later life. This special issue focuses on the diverse and intersecting ways that loss is experienced by older adults, as well as by stakeholders connected to this cohort, including:

• Families
• Caregivers
• Service providers
• Communities
• Policymakers

Aging frequently involves emerging and rapidly evolving forms of loss that may occur simultaneously and compound one another, such as:

• Geographic displacement
• Erosion of social and professional identity
• Declining cognitive capacity
• Exclusionary policies
• Loss or reassignment of valued social roles

These experiences can destabilize long-held senses of self, belonging, and agency, producing novel and often underexamined trajectories of various challenges in later life. By centering these processes within broader social, cultural, and policy contexts, the special issue seeks to elevate timely, interdisciplinary scholarship that deepens understanding of how loss is produced, interpreted, and navigated in aging populations.

Specific Aims of Issue

This special issue advances a timely and rigorous scholarly conversation on the emerging and rapidly evolving intersections of various forms of losses within the aging process. The issue aims to:

• Illuminate how geographic loss through migration, relocation, or place-based disconnection operates as a cumulative and compounding source of trauma and challenges in later life
• Examine identity loss across the life course, cognitive decline, and policy-driven exclusion
• Foreground the often-overlooked consequences of role loss and role reassignment within families, labor markets, and civic life as central mechanisms through which aging-related trauma is produced and sustained
• Foster innovative perspectives through interdisciplinary, empirical, and theoretical contributions
• Elevate marginalized experiences
• Shape future research, practice, and policy addressing loss and trauma in aging societies

Topics of Interest

• Geographic loss through aging
• Loss of identity through the aging process
• Loss of cognitive ability
• Policy exclusion promoting loss and trauma
• Loss of role assignment as we age

Keywords

• Loss of identity
• Loss of cognitive ability
• Loss of role assignment
• Policy exclusion
• Geographic loss