Despite all the contributions and actions older adults have made to their communities and family members, there is still a lot of stereotyping (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) toward people based on their age. Ageism affects people of all ages, but has particularly deleterious effects on the health and well-being of older people.
The striking increase in life expectancy and population aging claims for the development of appropriate responses to aging and multigenerational societies in the Region of the Americas.
Ageism, which refers to the stereotypes (how we think) , prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) directed towards others or ourselves on the basis of age, has serious consequences for people’s health, wellbeing, and human rights. Ageism is also a major barrier to enacting effective policies and actions.
Recognizing the pressing need to address ageism across countries, the 194 Member States of the World Health Organization called on its Director General to develop the Global Campaign to Combat Ageism. The Global Campaign consists of key products that provide a framework to prevent and counter ageism through three strategies that have demonstrated previous success: policy and law, educational activities, and intergenerational interventions.
The Global report on ageism outlines a framework for action to reduce ageism including specific recommendations for different actors (e.g. government, UN agencies, civil society organizations, private sector). It brings together the best available evidence on the nature and magnitude of ageism, its determinants and its impact. It outlines what strategies work to prevent and counter ageism, identifies gaps and proposes future lines of research to improve our understanding of ageism.
- Global report on ageism - Executive Summary
This manual and user guide for the WHO Ageism Scale is a practical guide for introducing, administering, scoring, and interpreting the scale. It also includes specific guidance on how to translate and validate the scale, and recommends example settings where the scale could be best used.
This campaign aims to tackle ageism by changing how we all think, feel and act towards age and aging. This toolkit aims to equip users with the necessary resources to learn about ageism, initiate their own conversations about this important topic in their communities, organize events to raise awareness, and spread the word through social media to create #AWorld4AllAges.
With the support of the PAHO/WHO, the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons was adopted at the General Assembly of the Organization of the American States (OAS) in June 2015. The Convention specifically advocates for the importance in ensuring that older adults receive:
The value in these liberties were decided by experts from multiple regions and several countries have ratified this Convention including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay. It is important for legal frameworks around the world to further advocate and protect this vulnerable and rapidly expanding older adult population in their respective countries.
