“Ageism, that is, discriminating individuals based on their age, has always existed, but the pandemic of COVID-19 has accentuated it. The vulnerability of elderly people to infection by COVID-19 has become evident, regardless of chronic diseases, and the idea that all older people are isolated, sad and anxious has become widespread. This is the belief of Lia Araújo, a young researcher at CINTESIS, a professor and gerontologist who has dedicated herself to studying the well-being and quality of life of older people.

She was born in 1986, in a village in São Pedro do Sul, but spent her childhood and youth in Murtosa. She did her undergraduate and master’s degree in Gerontology at the University of Aveiro, where she had the opportunity to start working with Oscar Ribeiro, leader of the AgeingC: Ageing Cluster. group she is part of.

“I was always very sure that this was the area I wanted. Ageing has always interested me and I was aware that society was going to need more and more specialized people,” she maintains.

She worked as a volunteer with the elderly in Sao Tome and Principe in her first year of college. “There is a before and after this experience. It was something that really marked me. I had never had contact with extreme poverty before. I cried a lot,” she recalls. She was also involved in various associations’ work, chaired the Student Association of the School of Health and was involved in the creation of the National Association of Gerontologists (ANG).

She started teaching at the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu 13 years ago, when she joined the research team led by Constança Paúl, at ICBAS (UNIFAI), which has since moved to CINTESIS. “I love what I do. This mix of research and teaching is a perfect marriage. I am sure that I am a better teacher because of the research I do, but I am also a better researcher because of my teaching,” she says.

She completed her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar of the University of Porto in 2015, under the PT100 – Centenarians project, which included 241 elderly centenarians. From about 1500 centenarians in 2011, Portugal will have increased to more than 4000 in 2015. We await the results of the Census to know the most current number.

“The PT100 was a remarkable experience because I participated in all the phases of the project, from the first day to the last. I was trained in Germany to interview centenarians and I interviewed many centenarians. It was a wonderful opportunity. These were people with many stories to share. Some were frail, I had to take many breaks. I interviewed people with heart failure, with respiratory failure, people who had lost their sight, who could no longer hear… I had never dealt with so many deficits, but I also met very autonomous people,” she recalls.

From the many studies she has carried out, some central ideas remain. First of all, “the only thing that centenarians have in common is age. There is a lot of heterogeneity and variability. Then, she highlights “the importance of personal resources and the way one faces life. In the Portuguese, the meaning of life is very much related to family and religion/spirituality. People who want to continue living are those who are more satisfied with their lives and not so much those who are in better health conditions. These are the conclusions of a study of which she is the first author, published in Frontiers in Psychology, with the title “To Live or Die: What to Wish at 100 Years and Older”.

The project QASP – Quality of life and Ageing in Spain, Sweden and Portugal, in which she was also involved, showed something similar: “Mental health and social relationships are two extremely important components in the quality of life of older people. There is still a lot of emphasis on physical health, but the truth is that when you put everything together, mental health is very important. We need to invest more in this area,” she says. The main results of this project were presented last October 1st, International Day of Older Persons, in an event held at CINTESIS/Faculty of Medicine at the University of Porto.

Lia Araújo is currently an associate professor at the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu. In addition, she is doing a second PhD in Education and Behavioral Sciences, supervised by Liliana Sousa, also a researcher at CINTESIS and a professor at the University of Aveiro. Her goal is to understand the potentialities of the photovoice tool, having developed the project “Eyes on the Pandemic: photovoice reports from the front-line gerontological professionals”, which counted with a grant from CINTESIS. The next step will be to use photovoice in the elderly and in higher education students. She has published several articles in her main research areas and has recently been invited to join the Editorial Board of Frontiers in Psychology.

1-Year Ambition

I really want to go back to face-to-face conferences, especially international ones. I have never been able to go abroad to study, which was a desire of mine. I have tried to make up for that by participating in short courses and congresses in several countries in Europe and the United States. This makes a lot of sense for scientific production and to partner with other teams.

I want to continue the projects I have, but I really wanted a new PT100, together with the CINTESIS team.

10-Year Ambition

The last 10 years were very rich, I fulfilled many life goals. Two of them were remarkable: one was the PhD and the other was being a mother. If the next 10 years give me as much as the last 10 years have given me, I will be very happy.

I also really want to stay at CINTESIS, with the people I have been working with. It is this team that makes me work with pleasure. CINTESIS values the researchers and fosters a spirit of belonging. This is fundamental!

Life Beyond Research

If there is one thing I have learned from centenarians, it is that family is extremely important in giving meaning to the things we do. Being able to share what I am and what I learn with my family is a way to give meaning to those achievements. I am very caring, I am very devoted to the younger and older members of the family. I like to do things with them, like cooking and going for walks.

The sea is very important to me. Every week I greet the sea. It is impossible to start a week without having seen the sea.