All’s well that ends well: analysing ageing trends in England
New study highlights the impact of socio-economic variables, such as education and wealth, on age-related frailty.
The challenge:
Like most countries, the UK is experiencing rising life expectancy and an ageing population. At the same time, there are growing fears that UK health outcomes are deteriorating. These trends make achieving healthy longevity a key individual, social and economic issue, and have considerable implications for government spending in the years ahead. But how do we age and are we ageing better?
New study highlights the impact of socio-economic variables, such as education and wealth, on age-related frailty.
The challenge:
Like most countries, the UK is experiencing rising life expectancy and an ageing population. At the same time, there are growing fears that UK health outcomes are deteriorating. These trends make achieving healthy longevity a key individual, social and economic issue, and have considerable implications for government spending in the years ahead. But how do we age and are we ageing better?
The intervention:
To examine this question, we utilised the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) dataset, covering the period 2002 to 2018. The aim was to understand how frailty develops with age, how this differs across demographic cohorts, whether younger cohorts are ageing better, and the key areas for health policy. The study overall showed good news – we are in general ageing better so that 60-year-olds today, for instance, are less frail than 60-year-olds previously. But it isn’t all good news. First, there is evidence that the rate of improvement is slowing. Secondly the rate of improvement varies enormously across different groups based on region and education. The less your education, income and wealth the less improvement you have seen. The good news is that how we age is malleable. The bad news is that means socio-economic factors are producing increasing divergence in health and longevity.
The impact:
The study emphasises the potential ability to shape health deficits and the need to exploit this to improve outcomes, particularly given the slowdown in health improvements and substantial inequalities. The breakdown of regional differences also suggests that policies to narrow these differences should focus on achieving greater improvements in mobility and daily-living activities among poorer-performing regions and tackling within-region inequality. The fact that our results suggest there have been only limited improvements in the incidence of age-related diseases and conditions further highlights the importance of better understanding these diseases and the development of potential therapeutics. These findings are crucial as ageing well becomes increasingly important in our society.
