The Healthy Aging Framework has created a framework for research through the United Nations Decade of Healthy Aging (2021-2030), as well as for action to address the mission of the Sustainable Development Goals of Bahamas Email List “Leave no one behind” (1). Researchers, governments and civil society are urged throughout the decade to develop strategies to detect and address inequalities and promote healthy aging. This program requires the coordinated effort of researchers in gerontology and geriatrics to address the wide variety of social and health problems that occur in aging, including those that affect functional capacity,
leaving no one behind
Healthy aging is dynamic. It reflects processes that occur Bahamas Email List throughout the latter part of the life course, and is influenced by factors such as mental and physical abilities, the environment, and the relationships between them. If there is an “adequate adaptation”, the result is well-being (3) and opportunities for older people in all countries and regions to be and do what they have reason to value (4). The healthy aging framework requires us to monitor how health evolves over time and how health systems can influence health trajectories. It is necessary to fill the existing gaps in knowledge regarding the Bahamas Email List support provided by the family environment and the degree to which communities have sufficient resources to make life easier for the elderly. The influence of relevant topics such as climate change and ageism must be brought into the field of discourse on healthy aging. It is necessary to develop indicators of well-being that reflect the interrelationship between person and environment, and use them to inform policies and practical interventions aimed at reducing inequalities.
Healthy Aging in the Region of the Americas
In the last 50 years alone, life expectancy has increased by more than 20 years. This significant increase in Bahamas Email List longevity is due in part to advances in medicine, public health interventions, biotechnology, and social and economic development, which have enabled people to live longer than at any other time in history (1 ). In Latin America and the Caribbean, the proportion of people aged 60 and over will increase by even 18% during the next decade and by Bahamas Email List it will be between 25% and 30% of the population. This transition will occur in 35 years, which is only half the time it took in the United States and Canada (2). Due to this accelerated demographic transition, the so-called “demographic window of opportunity,” which is the time available to prepare for the demographic transition, is rapidly shrinking in the Region of the Americas.
Despite the predictability of population aging
While it is increasingly understood that priority is given to aging, greater efforts Bahamas Email List must be made to address this impending demographic shift. Specific actions and interventions are necessary in order to ensure that longevity and aging are positive results of sustainable development in the Region (3). Demographic changes, along with epidemiological transitions and other challenges such as migration and climate change, require countries to create innovative mechanisms to address these new realities in all sectors (4). Despite the predictability of population aging, the world is Bahamas Email List far from ready to address this demographic transition. The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on many gaps in what we do and in the way we think about aging and older people. The pandemic has exposed the pervasive form in which ageism – stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination based on age – appears in society, particularly in health systems and organizations that provide health services. Many decisions regarding health care, the use of health system resources, and measures to contain the spread of the Bahamas Email List virus, such as discussions about vertical isolation, have been based exclusively on chronological age