Today is the first day of the Decade of Healthy Ageing, a WHO-supported UN initiative to bring together governments, civil society and other stakeholders and partners to promote healthy ageing across the world, including in the WHO South-East Asia Region. The global population is ageing, and the region is no exception.
The proportion of people in the region over the age of 60 is currently more than 10%, which is expected to double over the next three decades. By 2050 the proportion of people in the region over the age of 80 is expected to triple, from 1% to 3%. This demographic shift is largely the result of concerted public health action and improvements in health system functioning that have increased access to family planning and significantly reduced mortality from childhood and communicable diseases.
To meet the challenge of an ageing world and Region, WHO continues to support countries to promote healthy ageing via a multisectoral, whole-of-society approach. As WHO’s Global strategy and action plan on ageing and health emphasize, healthy ageing is about more than the absence of disease. Rather, it must include the active fostering of older people’s intrinsic capacity and functional ability so they can do what they value.
The Region’s Framework on Healthy Ageing, which was adopted in 2018, highlights seven strategic elements that the Member States have integrated into national strategies and plans. Key interventions include creating age-friendly environments, aligning health systems to the needs of older people and developing sustainable and equitable systems for long-term care.
Countries in the region are increasingly focused on implementing WHO’s Integrated Care of Older People (ICOPE) framework, which provides comprehensive guidance on how primary health care providers can screen, assess and manage a range of health problems, from non-communicable diseases such as dementia to key functional impediments. To facilitate this, WHO has supported the carrying out of feasibility studies and has developed a series of training materials that will strengthen the capacity of physicians and nurses to provide the necessary care.
As together we embark on this Decade of Healthy Ageing, we must sustain and accelerate the implementation of the Regional Framework and the ICOPE, which will advance progress on achieving universal health coverage, the Region’s Flagship Priorities, WHO’s “triple billion” targets and Sustainable Development Goal 3.
We begin this Decade of Healthy Ageing as COVID-19 continues to cause disproportionate morbidity and mortality among older people across the world and in our Region. Globally, the case fatality rate is around 3.5% for all ages but is around 12% for those aged 65 and older. In addition to the risk provided by the virus itself, older people have in recent months experienced challenges in accessing the health care they rely on to stay healthy and well.
Telemedicine has proven highly effective in overcoming such challenges and must continue to be leveraged as part of the Region’s focus on maintaining essential health services, highlighted in its recently adopted Declaration on the Collective Response to COVID-19. It is imperative that when a safe and effective vaccine is developed older people and high-risk groups such as workers in health-care and other social care settings are provided first access.
“As we begin the Decade of Healthy Ageing, I urge all governments, civil society and other stakeholders and partners in the region to come together for ten years of concerted, catalytic and collaborative action to improve the lives of older people, their families and the communities in which they live.
“WHO will continue to provide its steadfast support to this endeavour and to ensure all countries can fully implement the regional Framework on Healthy Ageing and the ICOPE. Together we can achieve the future we want for present and coming generations. We must not only be wise. We must also be bold,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia.