Following a session in May, a resumed World Health Assembly is taking place virtually this week (9-14 November).
The World Health Assembly (WHA) is the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO) and is attended by representatives of all Member States.
Our statement pledges support for the Decade of Healthy Ageing and highlights some of the work that the Cochrane Campbell Global Ageing Partnership is undertaking to help strengthen the evidence base in this area.
The full statement is below:
COVID-19 has emphasized the critical importance of evidence-informed global health policy. Governments, healthcare professionals and researchers worldwide continue to seek answers to questions related to the treatment of patients, and how best to protect populations. The pandemic has disproportionately affected older people and has demonstrated the need for and importance of good quality data and evidence to support them.
Cochrane is a global leader in producing high-quality synthesized evidence to inform health decision making. We are working closely with WHO in response to the pandemic by producing rapid reviews and living systematic reviews to answer COVID-19-related priority questions, as well as launching and maintaining one of the largest and most sophisticated registries of COVID-19 studies and a living synthesis of COVID-19 study results. In the area of ageing, the Cochrane Campbell Global Ageing Partnership produces and widely disseminates high-quality, high-priority systematic reviews of all available evidence, identifies evidence gaps and develops methods for evidence synthesis related to ageing. These syntheses will enable informed decision-making and policy development aimed at improving the lives of older people, their families and communities. The impacts of the pandemic clearly show that this work is more crucial now than ever.
The Cochrane Campbell Global Ageing Partnership pledges its commitment to the Decade of Healthy Ageing. We are working with the WHO Ageing and Health team and as members of the International Consortium on Evidence and Metrics for Healthy Ageing. This consortium is playing a key role in strengthening data, research and innovation, generating impact for older people’s health and wellbeing. There are still major evidence gaps and the Decade of Healthy Ageing will allow us to focus on research and innovation for improving the lives and wellbeing of older people.