Longevity and healthy ageing in Europe

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Baltic and Eastern European countries gradually joined the European Union. Only a few states of the former Yugoslavia, Switzerland and Norway remain formally separate from the Union. Croatia, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro and Turkey are now applying to join the Union, which potentially could bring together 44 European countries at the borders of Russia. Two states of Southern Europe, Malta and Cyprus, have also benefited from its developments to join the Union, which now has 27 Member States (MS). These changes have greatly increased the diversity of the health of populations living within the European Union both in terms of mortality and prevalence of chronic illness or disability.

For the first European Innovation partnership for 2020, “enabling the European citizens to live longer independently in good health by increasing the average number of healthy life years by 2”, the Union has to ensure that the impressive gaps among the MS existing today, in terms of longevity or healthy ageing, are reducing. This paper will present an overview of actual differences and trends in life expectancy and health expectancies in Europe. It will focus on longevity increases as well as productive [50 to 65 or 70 years] and active [75+] ageing. It will also review the European activities dealing with Summary Measures of Population Health (SMPH).