Dr. Robert Butler, an expert on aging who coined the phrase “ageism,” has died in New York City.
Christine Butler said her father died Sunday at Mount Sinai Medical Center. He was 83. She said the cause was leukemia.
Butler was a gerontologist and psychiatrist. He was the founding director of the National Institute on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health. He was also the founding chair of the nation’s first department of geriatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Butler also was the founding president of the International Longevity Center-USA in New York City.
He authored several books on aging, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Why Survive: Being Old in America.”