L Longevity Activism Ilia Stambler 1 and Elena Milova 2 1 Science, Technology and Society, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel 2 Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, New York City, NY, USA Synonyms Longevity advocacy Definition Longevity activism refers to public activities and advocacy directed toward the promotion of healthy longevity of the population, via advance- ment of biomedical science, promoting education and public health and science policy toward that purpose. Overview There is now an emerging international social advocacy movement dedicated to promotion of biomedical research and development to alleviate aging-related morbidity, extend healthy period of life, and improve healthy longevity for the elderly population. It is commonly referred to by the activists as the “longevity movement” or “longev- ity research and advocacy movement,” as well as “healthy life extension movement.” It is a “hybrid” between the aged rights advocacy, patient advocacy, and science advocacy, as it emphasizes the need to implement preventive medicine to improve health care for the elderly around the world via enhanced medical scientific research with a special focus on the mechanisms of biological aging. The goals of the movement, defined by the organizations, initiative groups, and individual activists representing it, are the following: – To increase public awareness of the plausibility and desirability to bring the processes of aging under medical control, thus extending healthy human life span, delaying the manifestation of age-related diseases, and improving health in the older age – To foster the improvement of the local and global legislation concerning health across the life course, aging, health and well-being of the elderly, and medical research with a special focus on the mechanisms of aging – To allocate more public funding to fundamen- tal and translational research on the mecha- nisms of aging and age-related diseases – To increase the interest of the investment industry in supporting biotechnology compa- nies developing innovative drugs and therapies targeting the underlying mechanisms of aging © This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2019 D. Gu, M. E. Dupre (eds.), Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_395-1