In October 2019, GCOA, the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), and the Permanent Mission of Antigua and Barbuda to the UN, along with three leading organizations addressing vision loss, brought together more than 60 UN ambassadors and leaders from global NGOs for an immersive dining experience directly connecting the growing numbers of people who are visually impaired with the 21st century megatrend of aging.

Dine in the Dark was an awareness-raising event during which guests participate in a sit-down meal while blindfolded to simulate the everyday experiences of those with vision loss. Inspired by the successful Dine in the Dark at the European Parliament in late 2018, GCOA, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, Lighthouse Guild, National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI), the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), and the Permanent Mission of Antigua and Barbuda to the United Nations brought this unforgettable event to the United Nations to highlight the urgent need for countries to prioritize action on eye health. Coming on the heels of the release of the first ever World Health Organization World report on vision, Dine in the Dark UN united policy makers, policy influencers, and other key stakeholders from the public, private, and NGO sectors around a shared priority to reduce the burden of avoidable vision loss.

In September 2019, Alzheimer’s Disease International released their latest World Alzheimer Report. The report examines attitudes to dementia, based on survey responses from almost 70,000 people across 155 countries and territories. The report reveals that stigma around dementia is preventing people from seeking the information, advice, support, and medical help that could dramatically improve their length and quality of life.

Some of the key findings of the report include:

• Almost 80% of the general public are concerned about developing dementia at some point and 1 in 4 people think that there is nothing we can do to prevent dementia
• 35% of carers across the world said that they have hidden the diagnosis of dementia of a family member
• Over 50% of carers globally say their health has suffered as a result of their caring responsibilities even whilst expressing positive sentiments about their role
• Almost 62% of healthcare providers worldwide think that dementia is part of normal aging
• 40% of the general public think doctors and nurses ignore people with dementia

The number of people living with dementia is forecast to more than triple, from over 50 million currently, to 152 million by 2050.

In September 2019, Bank of America published a report exploring how employees and employers view improvements in the workplace through the lens of financial wellness, healthcare costs, caregiving, and diversity and inclusion. The 2019 report found growth in financial wellness programs, it also identified areas for needed improvement, including closing the gender gap in retirement savings and engaging on employers’ caregiving responsibilities.

The report suggested that employers have an opportunity to help their employees to overcome challenges uncovered in the report through decisions they make about their benefits plans, financial wellness programs, and diversity initiatives.

In September 2019, IFPMA and the Health Policy Partnership published a new report on a life-course approach to immunization. Launched along the sidelines of the European Commission and World Health Organization Global Vaccination Summit, the report offers a policy framework for countries to maximize individual and population-wide health and economic benefits of a life-course approach to immunization. It draws on research from six countries – Australia, Japan, France, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America – and their experience in controlling vaccine-preventable diseases by implementing a life-course approach to immunization. Taking a life-course approach can improve health, support health system sustainability, and promote economic prosperity.

A 2019 study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, aimed to more fully assess the economic impact of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias by identifying and examining the so-called hidden costs, which extend far beyond the person affected and the formal healthcare system.

By 2030, it is estimated that the global cost of dementia could grow to US$2 trillion, which could overwhelm health and social care systems. The new report finds that these estimates are only the tip of the iceberg. Indirect and intangible costs, including those borne by caregivers and employers, begin to mount long before diagnosis and often go uncounted. In the US, some 18.5 billion hours of informal care are estimated to be provided by caregivers of people with dementia each year. If they are forced to reduce their working hours, take early retirement, or are absent from work because of stress, this not only impacts their employers, but they may be less able to save for retirement, or need to dip into their savings to get by.

Click here to read GCOA’s Dementia Innovation Readiness Index, which analyzes the readiness of countries to integrate innovative dementia solutions into their healthcare systems and policy frameworks.

The Global Alliance on Heart Failure and Healthy Aging is a multisectoral initiative that aims to reframe heart failure as an urgent priority on the global health agenda in the context of 21st-century aging. While heart failure does increase in prevalence with age, its symptoms, such as fatigue and shortness of breath, must not be mistaken as normal parts of aging or as other co-morbidities associated with older age.

The Alliance consists of experts at the intersection of aging, cardiovascular health, healthcare policy and practice, patient advocacy, and communications – all committed to stimulating education, awareness, and policy action that will improve understanding, lead to earlier diagnosis, and mitigate individual, family and economic burdens of this insufficiently recognized and costly disease condition.

Formed in 2019, the Alliance was borne out of a series of think tanks held by GCOA around the world throughout 2018. The Alliance includes more than 30 partners from diverse geographies, disciplines, and areas of expertise, aligned by a Consensus Statement and Call to Action, and pursuing research and strategic communications to advance its goals.

In June 2019, GCOA partnered with the Tokyo-based Health and Global Policy Institute to convene a policy roundtable alongside the G20 Finance Ministers Meeting. Held at the Nikkei Head Office in Tokyo, the roundtable brought together a select group of cross-sector experts to share their insights on moving vaccine policies forward and positioning vaccine policies within the global health agenda of the G20 and the WHO Decade of Healthy Ageing. In August 2019, the two organizations released reports in English and in Japanese summarizing the key recommendations from the roundtable.

In July 2019, Prevent Blindness hosted the 8^th Annual Focus on Eye Health National Summit at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The Focus on Eye Health National Summit has become a key venue to elevate the national dialogue among diverse stakeholder groups around vision and significant public health issues such as surveillance, access, prevention messaging, service integration, program development and dissemination of best practices. CEO Michael Hodin presented findings from the GCOA white paper, A Life Course of Healthy Vision, as part of the Engaging Stakeholders to Improve Vision panel.

A new study, part of the 18th Annual Retirement Survey from Aegon’s Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS), found that only about a quarter of the self-employed are “very much” looking forward to retirement. Among other striking findings about the preference of the self-employed, the survey of 755 respondents also found that 68% are planning to work past age 65, and 28% don’t plan to retire at all. Given the autonomy and flexibility of self-employment, the concept of retirement is less relevant to the self-employed and not necessarily something they aspire to. These findings offer further evidence of how ideas about retirement are rapidly changing among people of all ages.

In June 2018, GCOA launched a groundbreaking report demonstrating how relationship-based home care can enable ongoing delivery of high-quality, person-centered, and outcomes-based care to older adults while bending the healthcare cost curves exploding across Europe. 

This German translation of the Relationship-Based Home Care report outlines the benefits of relationship-based home care to individuals and their families, to the care ecosystem, and to societies and proposes a set of policy actions to support the integration of this innovative form of care into European health and care systems. See the original report and infographic in English.

GCOA partnered with the National Alliance for Caregiving and Nestlé Skin Health SHIELD to create tools to help caregivers better understand how something as seemingly simple as touch can be both empowering and transformative in the caregiving relationship. 

The Power of Touch materials include a video and a companion booklet to provide caregivers with practical information about how to care for the skin of their care recipients. These materials are intended to give caregivers the tools and knowledge they need to feel empowered and meaningfully impact the health and wellbeing of their care recipients.

In May 2019, GCOA released a new white paper upending the prevailing view of deteriorating vision as an inevitable consequence of aging and calling on policymakers and stakeholders to prioritizing healthy vision as we age on the public health and economic policy agendas.

 The Life Course of Healthy Vision white paper examines the health and economic impacts of visual impairment and vision loss and calls on policymakers, health systems, employers, and advocates alike to prioritize action to reduce the global burden of visual impairment and vision loss. Based on insights from GCOA’s December 2018 Life Course of Healthy Vision roundtable, the white paper identifies barriers to adequate eye care – including ageism, health system silos, treatment burden, strained capacity, and policy – and calls for immediate action across five key pillars: Access and Capacity, Financing, Research, Education, and Workplace.

In April 2019, Merrill Lynch and Age Wave released the final report in their series on life stages, Early Adulthood: The Pursuit of Financial Independence. The new report, based on a survey of 2,700 early adults, finds that those between the ages of 18 and 35 are struggling to achieve financial independence, with many already having drawn on their retirement savings to pay off debt. And nearly three-fourths of early adults say they would benefit from more financial guidance – more so than those in any other life stage. These findings have important implications both for today’s older adults, the parents of these early adults, and for how society and financial institutions can better help adults across the life course plan and save for retirement.

In June 2018, GCOA launched a groundbreaking report demonstrating how relationship-based home care can enable ongoing delivery of high-quality, person-centered, and outcomes-based care to older adults while bending the healthcare cost curves exploding across Europe. 

This Chinese translation of the Relationship-Based Home Care report outlines the benefits of relationship-based home care to individuals and their families, to the care ecosystem, and to societies and proposes a set of policy actions to support the integration of this innovative form of care into European health and care systems. See the original report and infographic in English.

In April 2019, Bayer and the Global Coalition on Aging released a white paper calling on policy makers to address cardiovascular disease to promote healthy aging. The paper highlights the current momentum from the global health community that makes now the opportune time to advance a healthy aging agenda for cardiovascular diseases. The report calls for specific policy actions in three areas that will advance ongoing innovation and engage a wide range of stakeholders: awareness, innovation, and collaboration.

A new study of 3,000 American adults age 55 and older explores a range of topics, including what people most want to be remembered for (memories shared with loved ones, said more than two-thirds of the respondents) and the benefits of having your affairs in order. The study, conducted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in partnership with Age Wave, also found a disconnect between intention and action: nine out of 10 adults are open to discussing end-of-life preferences with friends and family, but only 18% have the three recommended essentials in place: a will, health care directive, and durable power of attorney.

This January 2019 report, by GCOA Advisory Council member Nicholas Eberstadt, examines China’s demographic profile over the next 20 years. According to Eberstadt’s study, China is set to experience an extraordinarily rapid surge of population aging, with especially explosive population growth for those 65 and older, even as its working-age population, conventionally defined as 15-64, progressively shrinks. These changes – and how China adapts to them – will have enormous implications for its economy and society.