Promoting Healthy Ageing in the WHO Western Pacific Region

As part of the European Observatory for Health Systems and Policies “Economics and Active Ageing” series, authors looked at how population ageing may affect public health spending and economic growth in the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region and how future trends may change if people age in better health.

They outline 5 objectives:

• Objective 1: Transforming societies as a whole to promote healthy ageing, based on understanding the implications of population ageing
• Objective 2: Transforming health systems to address each individual’s lifelong health needs by providing necessary health and non-health services in a coordinated way
• Objective 3: Providing community-based integrated care for older adults tailored to individual needs
• Objective 4: Fostering technological and social innovation to promote healthy ageing
• Objective 5: Research, monitoring and evaluation

They conclude achieving good health at older ages in the Western Pacific Region will require greater investment and long-term commitment from governments, now. Prioritising investment into the most effective health sector interventions, such as strengthening primary health care and prevention, alongside increasing population coverage, will be important to help improve population health with constrained resources.

Read the full report (in English) here.