measuring action on ageing: examples from helpage international
TRANSCRIPT
Measuring action on global ageing
Examples from Helpage International
Kings College 23 March 2015
Sylvia Beales HelpAge International [email protected]
HelpAge works with 116 Affiliates and 6 regional offices in 74 countries; Global Network and NGO
Our motivation – counting the uncounted
Listening to and making visible who is ageing, and where
Responding to our changing world
In 2014In 2014
868m868mare aged 60 are aged 60
or overor over
By 2050By 2050
2.02b2.02bwill be aged will be aged
60 or over60 or over
66%66% of the of the
world’s 60+ live world’s 60+ live
in low- and in low- and
middle- income middle- income
countriescountries
By 2050 the By 2050 the
proportion is proportion is
projected to projected to
rise to rise to 80%80%
Scale and rate of global population ageing
Increases in all regions
Source: UNDESA Population Division, Population Ageing and Development 2012, Wall Chart, 2012; UNDESA Population Division, World Population Prospects: the 2012 Revision, 2013
Older people are disproportionally affected
Older people and disasters
Background findings of ‘ Ageing in the 21st Century – a celebration and a challenge’
Older people play a vital role, giving more than they receive
Investment in basic income security, pensions systems and health brings returns across generations
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on the rise
Dementia care costs fall mainly on the family. Worldwide cost of dementia in 2010: US$604 billion.
Environmental change and humanitarian disaster affect older people disproportionately
Age-friendly housing and transport vital to access services
Elder abuse often hidden in families – shame and stigma
Global Agewatch Index – what is it? • Monitors well-being of older people across the world
• Benchmarks countries and provide insight into areas of policy intervention
• Provides a guideline framework for governments and international institutions on key data to collect to develop and respond to population ageing
• Helps identify, track and monitor key trends on ageing at country, regional and global levels
• Ensures the Post 2015 framework includes older people and responds to the UN Secretary General’s call for a ‘data revolution’.
• Uses the latest cross-national data available from World Bank, WHO, ILO, and Gallup World View
• Covers 96 countries representing 91% of the world’s older people interactive website www.globalagewatch.org
Four domains and thirteen indicators
Where next? Filling the gaps
Older people contribute so much…
it’s time to invest in them
Gaps in data in income security domain meant only possible to include 96 countries
2014 rankings
• To demonstrate what is currently possible with existing data sets to assess the situation of older people and disaster risk
• To provide direction to governments and policy makers on what needs to improve to reduce the risk to older people
• To highlight the major mega trends of increasing disaster risk and an ageing globe
• Importantly to highlight the data gaps on older people and limitations
Disaster Risk and Age IndexIndex of countries based on their old age populations risk to disaster
Disaster Risk and Age Index Methodology• Old Age augmented version of INFORM Global Risk Index
unchanged
Examples: child mortality
removed; pension coverage and
relative old age poverty
introduced, some indicators
were age disaggregated
Examples: Introduced 60+
access to internet and mobile
technology; 60+mortality for
diarrheal diseases as a proxy for
health system strength
Findings ©
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Ageing and disaster smart development
Investments in pension systems are one of the most important ways to ensure economic independence and reduce poverty in old age.
Older people need to be included in all actions addressing both infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, malaria and diarrheal diseases) and no communicable diseases (NCDs). Food security and nutrition appropriate for people in later life should also be ensured to boost overall health and wellbeing.
An age-friendly physical environment (affordable and disaster-resilient housing and easily accessible transportation) that promotes the development and use of innovative technologies to encourage active ageing is especially important as people grow older and experience reduced mobility and visual and hearing impairments.
Major efforts must be made to collect and provide much higher levels of age, sex and disability disaggregated data across development data sets
Cross-national research challenges: Data
• We lack internationally comparable data on older people (e.g. poverty in old age, political participation, life-long learning, psychological well-being)
Cross-national research challenges: Data• When data is available it might not reflect the current
situation
• Time lag when national statistics makes it to international datasets
• No international agreement on methodology of measuring indicators (e.g. HALE; poverty rate: absolute vs. relative; equivalence scale; income vs. consumption based)
• Subjective indicators - better quality data needed
greater sample and age group 60+
• should be part of national datasets (e.g. Eurofound Quality of life Survey 2012, EU Quality of life indicators
2014/5 influencing impact examples
• Global - Post-2015; putting age in the new Sustainable Development Goal Framework: through
Improving and extending data on ageing - leave no one behind
Input of findings to Member State and regional body negotiations – age in 7 of the 17 proposed goals of framework
Highlighting age in November ‘14 data report of UN expert ‘data revolution’ group, and in December ‘14 SG report
Using Global AgeWatch Index together with Commonwealth Youth Index to promote better data and visibility of youth and older people
• The Economic and Social Research Council support national research from January 2015 using the Index framework in 4 Asian countries - China, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh
• National Index development in Korea, China and Kenya
• United Arab Emirates propose a regional Index to support planning on ageing and to fill in data gaps for the region
Charter 14
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