Public Health: ageing

Across the globe there is a very rapid ageing of the population. We’re getting a massive shift in the balance of the population. It used to be a pyramid - with lots of children and very few old people. It’s now sort of straight. Taking stock of the world’s population and examining cross-national trends and comparative indicators is revealing that we’re getting older with rapid pace. In England a century ago Queen Victoria sent 20 congratulatory telegrams to people who reached the age of 100. And last year Queen Elizabeth sent more than 3,000 telegrams to people who reached the age of 100. Today there are probably 60,000 centenarians in the world and we expect that there may be 100,000 centenarians alive in the year 2000.

New technologies and behaviours can have striking impacts on health. It’s important to know that it wasn’t a function of genetic biological evolution, it’s really a function of direct progress: medical progress, social progress, better nutrition, the application of the germ theory of disease. So, we had a dramatic reduction of deaths of women giving birth to children and of children and infants. But also, interestingly, from age 65 there’s been a dramatic reduction in the death rate too from heart disease and stroke. So altogether we’ve seen a human-made potential celebration of longevity.

Other important factors are improved diet, improved housing conditions, clean water, just the sort of basic necessities of everyday living having greatly improved. When people wash their hands to stop germs spreading, infection rates drop. When we eat proper food with minerals and vitamins our bodies are stronger. The figures for coronary heart disease going down because people are managing their lifestyles better. The fall of stroke rates happened with the better management and treatment of very high levels of blood pressure and a change from eating high-salt food and cured food, may also mean that the population levels of blood pressure have dropped, and that again will have a favourable impact on stroke mortality. Other ageing diseases, however, such as Alzheimer do need increasing attention. If we stop smoking and take exercise we feel better. Our actions do have effects. Well-organised societies, with better food, improved public health and education and the choice of contraception - all these have meant many more people on the planet can live longer lives. It’s a remarkable human achievement, some sort of victory for the species to celebrate.
There seems to be two schools of thought. There are the ones who say it’s a terrible problem: it’s all going to be dementia, depression and disability. And there are the boosters and the optimists who say: no, we’re all going to have fulfilled lives.
How will tomorrow work in the ageing future? Does longer life mean shorter hours, or more years at the grindstone? In the world of work too.

Recent study targeting a group of socially disadvantaged men, followed since their youth, showed that they tended to have a happy retirement if, before retiring, they had enjoyable relationships, enjoyed their vacations and were satisfied with their jobs. The study suggests that whether a man is happily retired or not may depend on his marriage, mental outlook and physical health more than his pension.

In Britain, From 1 October employers will be banned from forcing workers to retire before the age of 65. And bosses will have to give an individual at least six months notice of their retirement date. Workers will also be able to remain in their job beyond the age of 65 if their employer agrees. The laws will ban direct and indirect discrimination in the areas of recruitment, promotion and training.

We have to look for ways that everyone, young and old, children to get a sense of the entire life cycle, to get a sense of the stages of life and the prospect of the future. We all have to appreciate that if we’re living longer, we will have longer productive years, we have more time to explore multiple dimensions of selves, wants, abilities and skills, we are going to work longer, fit in proper profession and perhaps to be promoted later.
And that we shouldn’t be envious and angry at older people and want them to ‘get out of the way’ because that’s our future too - we will be there one day. So if we can be more inventive, there’s no shortage of work, no shortage of work to be done: taking care of people, cleaning up the environment, managing a variety of productive systems, factories or whatever.

People get re-training, new opportunities, two careers, three careers, four careers, we will bring new concepts in work, we’ll find older people in particular jobs that are more suited to them.