National Council on Aging history

1958 Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging established.

1959 A Section on Aging established within NIMH (James E. Birren, head).

1961 First White House Conference on Aging recommends creation of an Aging Institute.

1963 The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is established to focus on health issues across the life course, including in old age.

On July 14, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Older Americans Act (OAA) into law.

December 2, 1971 The White House Conference on Aging once again recommends creation of a separate National Institute on Aging.

October 7, 1974 The National Institute on Aging is established.

July 1, 1975 The Adult Development and Aging Branch and Gerontology Research Center are separated from their parent institute (NICHD) to become the core of the National Institute on Aging.

September 20, 1982 NIA Laboratory of Neurosciences Clinical Program admits the first inpatient to a new unit at the NIH Clinical Center.

1987 The first annual Florence S. Mahoney Lecture on Aging is held.

1990 The GRTCs are expanded and renamed the Claude D. Pepper Older American Independence Centers and charged with conducting research in diseases that threaten independent living.

1994 Nine demography of aging centers are funded to provide research on health, economics, and aging to make more effective use of data from several national surveys of health, retirement, and long-term care.

1996 NIA introduces its Exercise: A Guide from the National Institute on Aging, providing encouragement and evidence-based guidance for older adults to engage in exercise.

1999 As part of NIA's 25th anniversary celebration, a strategic plan is formulated and made available for public comment.

2002 NIA begins to offer a selection of its award-winning health communications materials in Spanish.

2005 NIA’s Alzheimer’s Disease Preclinical Drug Development program is established.

2008 A Biology of Aging Summit is convened to review NIA’s research portfolio, identify areas of opportunity, and facilitate the formulation of cohesive and comprehensive plans for the future.

2011 NIA launches the Go4Life campaign, to promote exercise and physical activity nationwide for people 50 and older, with public and private partners from a variety of aging, fitness, and provider organizations.

2013 NIA grantees publish landmark study in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing that costs for caring for dementia patients exceed those for heart disease, cancer, and many other conditions.

The Trans-NIH GeroScience Interest Group hosts the second geroscience summit, “Disease Drivers of Aging: 2016 Advances in Geroscience Summit” on April 13–14 at the New York Academy of Sciences.