First Report of the Council on the Ageing Society

The Coun­cil on the Age­ing Soci­ety is one of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils cre­at­ed by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in 2008. It address­es glob­al issues asso­ci­at­ed with our age­ing soci­ety and has the task of chal­leng­ing pre­vail­ing assump­tions, mon­i­tor­ing trends, propos­ing solu­tions, devis­ing strate­gies, and mak­ing pub­lic pol­i­cy pro­pos­als. It is com­posed of sci­en­tists, pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers, aca­d­e­mics, physi­cians and busi­ness lead­ers, includ­ing our very own Alvaro Fernandez.

The first report of the Coun­cil on the Age­ing Soci­ety was pub­lished this month in Glob­al Pol­i­cy. In this ?rst pub­li­ca­tion the Coun­cil presents the basic prin­ci­ples that will guide its views, actions and poli­cies in the com­ing years.

We empha­sise the pow­er of knowl­edge as a pol­i­cy tool. Evi­dence-based infor­ma­tion about indi­vid­ual and  soci­etal age­ing must replace myths of senes­cence and ageist assumptions …

… ear­ly and repeat­ed pre­ven­tive care ‘inter­ven­tions’ (espe­cial­ly in health behav­iours and
geri­atric med­i­cine) and ‘pre­ven­tive’ mea­sures (such social inte­gra­tion, design of cities and life­long learn­ing so that work­ers can upgrade skills) will delay the onset of late-life dif?culties

A com­pre­hen­sive and very inter­est­ing call to action that you can read here.