Being in poor health or living with a disabling health condition are not inevitable consequences of ageing.
However, both how long people live and how many of those years are spent in good health varies hugely across different parts of the country and is strongly associated with levels of wealth.
To support people to stay healthier for longer and to increase disability-free life expectancy, we need to prevent or delay the onset of common causes of disability in mid and later life. And when they do occur, we need to slow their progression and reduce their impact by making them less debilitating. We can do this by focusing on primary, secondary and tertiary prevention.
We must also address the wider determinants of health, which include our social and community networks, the environment around us and our homes and general living and working conditions. We are working with a wide range of partners to explore the action that needs to be taken so we can all remain as healthy as possible as we grow older and to spur action to reduce the huge gap in health status between rich and poor.
