Publication: The Healthy Longevity Initiative: Key Insights for Policy and Action
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2024-09-12
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2024-09-11
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The global demographic landscape is at a crossroads, with rapid declines in fertility and aging populations holding profound implications for employment, social services, and wellbeing. Population aging has accelerated the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as the leading cause of global deaths and are expected to contribute to ninety percent of all deaths by 2040. This has implications for health systems (NCD-related hospitalization) and long-term care as well as for labor markets and social protection systems. There is a need for whole of society approaches and solutions that address equity gaps especially due to poverty and gender inequality, which further exacerbate the challenges. The Healthy Longevity Initiative (HLI) spotlights key high impact interventions in health and social sectors that countries can adapt to address the challenge of changing demographics and growing NCDs. While this requires greater financial outlays, the benefits far outweigh the costs with the potential of saving 150 million lives cumulatively by 2050 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) alone. Mobilizing support to move from knowledge to action is needed to realize the astounding human and economic benefits of addressing one of the major challenges of the 21st century.
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“Altuwaijri, Sameera; Jha, Prabhat; Alleyne, George; Isenman, Paul; Saadat, Seemeen; Garcia, Gisela; Veillard, Jeremy. 2024. The Healthy Longevity Initiative: Key Insights for Policy and Action. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42143 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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