A model for Healthy Aging and Health Equity – determinants, pathways, and what can be done

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Event Type: 
Brown Bag
Date and Time: 
Friday, July 15, 2016
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Speaker: 
Ritu Sadana
World Health Organization
Abstract: 

Much has been written on healthy ageing and on health equity, yet from a global perspective limited conceptual and analytical work connecting the two has been considered and published. This talk is based on a review done to inform the WHO World Report on Ageing and Health (2015) and aims to encourage further work in the combined area of healthy ageing and equity.  This talk also reflects a paper published in The Gerontologist (April 2016), and is based on an extensive literature review on the overlap between both topics, privileging publications from 2005 onward, from low-, middle-, and high-income countries.  It also summarizes evidence generated around the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, applicable to ageing and health across the life course, and recent basic data from WHO’s statistical database on life expectancy and healthy life expectancy.  
 
The discussion will highlight differences in older adults’ health and consider three issues: First, multi-level factors that contribute to differences in healthy ageing, across contexts, adapting a social determinants’ of health approach; second, policies or potential entry points for action that could serve to reduce unfair differences (health inequities); and third, new research areas to address the cause of persistent inequities and gaps in evidence on what can be done to increase healthy ageing and health equity.   Strategies to include older adults within universal health coverage and increase age friendly environments, will be highlighted.