1 October 2024, Cairo, Egypt – This year’s International Day of Older Persons, celebrated annually on 1 October, adopts the theme Ageing with Dignity: The Importance of Strengthening Care and Support Systems for Older Persons Worldwide.

People are living longer, and while the trajectory of each person’s life is different, older people are more likely to experience complex, chronic conditions, the management of which requires close coordination across different levels of health and social care, than younger people.

While we are, on average, living longer, we are not necessarily living healthier. Good quality, affordable and equitable care that helps us make the most of our longer lives – no matter who we are, where we live or how old – is urgently needed.

Care and support systems that meet the needs of older people needs to be enhanced. A recent WHO study found that people aged 60 years and above experience unmet health care needs regardless of whether they live in low-, middle- or high-income countries.

Older people may also need preventative and promotive care that maintains good health. Such care can include access to the information, skills and tools we need to care for ourselves.

According to the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing progress report (2023), only 1 in 4 reporting countries have the resources to implement integrated care that is responsive to older people’s needs, only 1 in 3 can implement long-term care, just 16% of low-income countries, which rely heavily on informal care, have training programmes for informal caregivers, and less than 60% of reporting countries included long-term care in their national competency framework for geriatric care workers.

The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030) calls for a transformation of the ways we provide care and a shift towards delivering person-centred, integrated care responsive to older people’s needs.

WHO is contributing to the implementation of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing by supporting countries transform their health and care systems and integrate longer term care of older people in universal health coverage.

WHO recommends that countries provide an integrated continuum of care which:

is person-centred, appropriate, affordable, and accessible, focusing above all on supporting every person to meet their needs and preferences and fulfil their goals;

integrates health services across disciplines and specialities to guarantee every person receives the full range of health care they need without getting lost between separate services and systems;

integrates health and social care, ensuring every person has seamless access to both short- and long-term care across clinical settings, care facilities, their local communities and their homes;

cares for the carers, valuing their contributions, providing adequate support, and ensuring equity – including for informal caregivers such as family carers, who are disproportionately women; and

holds national governments accountable for providing care, in close collaboration with local governments, civil society organisations or the private sector, as appropriate.

Focusing on an integrated continuum of care will enable countries to better meet the needs of people of all ages, making it a good investment for everyone, everywhere, and an essential component of universal health coverage.