Policies for Healthy Ageing : An Overview
With the aging of OECD countries’ population over coming decades, maintaining health in old age will become increasingly important. Successful policies in this area can increase the potential labour force and the supply of non-market services to others. They can also delay the need for longer-term care for the elderly.
A first section briefly defines what is meant by healthy aging and discusses similar concepts – such as “active aging”. The paper then groups policies into four different types and within each, it describes the range of individual types of programmes that can be brought to bear to enhance improved health of the elderly. A key policy issue in this area concerns whether such programmes have a positive effect on health outcomes and whether they are cost effective.
Looking at specific programmes, the material covered by this review also suggests that important improvements to the health and welfare of older cohorts seem possible from some combination of : delaying retirement, increased community activities, improved lifestyles, health-care systems that are better adapted to the needs of the elderly, particularly where they are combined with more emphasis on cost-effective prevention.
However, this study also finds that, while there is considerable evidence that certain policy instruments can help improve the health status of the elderly, it remains unclear as to which are the most (cost) effective. Thus, more research is needed in this area if policy choices are to be (more) evidence-based. But whatever the choice of specific programmes, progress towards healthy ageing would probably be enhanced by placing individual programmes within broader policy frameworks that bring together the full range of measures so as to make them mutually reinforcing.
Measuring Health Care Disparities
Most OECD countries have endorsed as major policy objectives the reduction of inequalities in health status and the principle of adequate or equal access to health care based on need. These policy objectives require an evidence-based approach to measure progress.
This paper assesses the availability and comparability of selected indicators of inequality in health status and in health care access and use across OECD countries, focusing on disparities among socioeconomic groups.
In each case, people in lower socioeconomic groups tend to have a higher rate of disease, disability and death, use less preventive and specialist health services than expected on the basis of their need, and for certain goods and services may be required to pay a proportionately higher share of their income to do so.
The Obesity Epidemic : Analysis of Past and Projected Future Trends in Selected OECD Countries (2009)
This paper provides an overview of past and projected future trends in adult overweight and obesity in OECD countries. Using individual-level data from repeated cross-sectional national surveys, some of the main determinants and pathways underlying the current obesity epidemic are explored, and possible policy levers for tackling the negative health effect of these trends are identified.
First, projected future trends show a tendency towards a progressive stabilisation or slight shrinkage of pre-obesity rates, with a projected continued increase in obesity rates.
Second, results suggest that diverging forces are at play, which have been pushing overweight and obesity rates into opposite directions.
Third, the distribution of overweight and obesity in OECD countries consistently shows pronounced disparities by education and socio-economic condition in women, while mixed patterns are observed in men.
Fourth, the findings highlight the spread of overweight and obesity within households, suggesting that health-related behaviours, particularly those concerning diet and physical activity, are likely to play a larger role than genetic factors in determining the convergence of BMI levels within households.
For further information
OECD Working Paper on Healthy Ageing
OECD Working Paper on Health Care Disparities
OECD Working Paper on Obesity Epidemic
EPHA related article
