Equity and healthy ageing

Equity and healthy ageing Sridhar Venkatapuram, Hans-Jörg Ehni & Abha Saxena a Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, England. b Institute for Ethics and the History of Medicine, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. c Global Health Ethics Unit, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. Corresponding to Sridhar Venkatapuram (email: [email protected]) (Submitted: 1 November 2016 – Revised version received: 27 July 2017 – Accepted: 2 August 2017 – Published online: 18 September 2017) In many areas of the world, old age is perceived as an end-of-life stage characterized by declining physical and mental faculties, increased risk of morbidity and withdrawal from productive social activities. Interestingly, the chronological age at which a person is first considered to be old varies across societies 1,2 and appears to be positively correlated to life expectancy in a particular global region or society. The dramatically different life expectancies across societies mean remarkably varied starting points for old age. 3