Am J Med Public Health | Volume 4, Issue 5 | Review Article | Open Access
Woo J*
Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Fulltext PDFThis article explores the societal consequences of population ageing, and how strategies promoted by the United Nations as part of the Sustainable Development goals and the Decade of Health Ageing, may be applied to Hong Kong to respond to the consequences of population ageing. The consequences should not be limited to discourse on non-communicable diseases, but need to include declines in intrinsic capacity or frailty, and how physical and social environments may aggravate or mitigate age-related changes in functioning, as metrics of healthy ageing. This vision involves redesigning health and social care systems, workforce training, a fit for purpose policy and mode of financing with sustainability. There is existing infrastructure on which these changes may be developed, and there are various encouraging initiatives, albeit un-coordinated with questionable financial sustainability. Much more needs to be done along these trajectories of development, at a pace that matches the speed of ageing and the rise in the absolute numbers of the very old. Using the term ‘Tsunami’ to describe the potential scenario when community response failed to match needs, may well be appropriate and not and expression of ageism.
Population ageing; Healthy life expectancy; Health inequality; Healthy ageing; Ageism
Woo J. Policy Implications of Population Ageing in Hong Kong in the UN Decade of Healthy Aging. Am J Med Public Health. 2023; 4(5): 1056..