The health sustainable development goal (SDG3) aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote
wellbeing for all, at all ages.” One of its core targets is to achieve universal health
coverage (UHC). However, older adults require different approaches to health care
and are often less able to pay for these services; therefore, health systems will
need to be realigned significantly to meet these targets.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) Global strategy and action plan on ageing and
health
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provides a political mandate for action to enable this transformation.
The strategy focuses on strengthening health and long-term care systems at local and
national levels to cover the needs of older adults through strengthening national
policy, combating ageism, generating new evidence and supportive tools and creating
more age-friendly environments. Sustainable financing, a key concern of policy-makers,
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must also be addressed, as ageing societies are likely to present significant challenges:
ageing health workforce, higher disease burden
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and increased demand for services and for people who provide care.
These challenges call for three interlinked strategies to make health systems fit
for purpose and context: strengthening the systems’ foundations, reforming institutions
and fostering transformation. Implementing these changes demands shifting away from
disease-oriented financing, resources and management, towards a person-centred agenda
that values health gain.
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Implementing these policies and actions will advance healthy ageing and increase older
adults’ capacities and ability to function where they live, replacing the belief that
older people only need specialized medical treatments for each disease or condition.
Although every country is different, steps can be taken towards UHC that is more inclusive
of older adults.
First, countries need to foster better integration between health and social care
to improve and maintain older adults’ physical and cognitive capacities. Older people
who benefit from coordinated chronic care that is guided by comprehensive assessments
report more satisfaction and experience fewer emergency referrals than when they receive
services that treat individual conditions independently.
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Reforms in Thailand have fostered better integration between health and social care,
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and those in Chile have added services that improve and maintain physical and cognitive
capacities.
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Ensuring essential medicines and assistive devices and adapting environments of those
who are care dependent, at home or in neighbourhoods, increases the number of older
adults who function better and have more meaningful lives.
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Hong Kong, China, offers a case study on documenting the comprehensive needs of older
adults. This approach combines medical and social services and offers financial incentives
to older adults to use community centres to address geriatric syndromes and conditions,
from dementia to chewing, visual and hearing difficulties.
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WHO’s guidelines on Integrated care for older people,
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promote six community-level interventions to manage the decline of physical and mental
capacities; the guidelines also include interventions to support caregivers.
Second, policy-makers must negotiate ways to reduce costs and increase risk sharing.
The WHO Survey on Global Ageing and Adult Health in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, the
Russian Federation and South Africa, documents that households with people older than
50 years experienced greater financial burden due to health costs,
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compared to households without older people, including higher rates of impoverishment,
catastrophic health expenditures and borrowing of money to pay for health services.
For the same countries, health insurance generally increased access to care, but gave
insufficient protection against financial hardship.
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For equitable access and financial protection, financing services should pool together
all people and not discriminate by age, employment, residential or health status.
With the world’s oldest population, Japan offers experience in 50 years of political
commitment, progressive financing mechanisms, coverage of long-term care services
and strategic purchasing of services, drugs and devices. These actions can result
in cost savings, reduce cost escalation, enhance gender equity and foster innovations
towards UHC that is inclusive of older persons.
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Finally, achieving UHC requires countries to pay attention to health inequities. Differences
in functioning during the second half of life reflect the cumulative impact of many
social and environmental determinants.
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Interventions must assess impact on all ages, gender and socioeconomic groups. The
government-supported Longitudinal Ageing Study in India illustrates a comprehensive
situation assessment, which will enable analysis and planning within each Indian state
and territory for the next 25 years.
To progress towards UHC, policy-makers must address competing priorities for different
population groups, services and financing mechanisms. The commitment of the Senegalese
Ministry of Health and Social Action to review its plan covering individuals 60 years
and older, conduct further analyses in rural areas and develop a new national strategy
towards healthy ageing shows that actions can be informed by policy dialogues across
government sectors and be inclusive of civil society, so that on the road to UHC,
no one is left behind.