A Health Promotion Perspective on the “Decade of Healthy Ageing” Initiative

Many ageing initiatives have been developed in the past decades, but the “Decade of Healthy Ageing 2021–2030” is a promising flagship initiative intended to support older adults. This chapter aims to provide a health promotion perspective to this initiative. This chapter suggests that support intended for older adults through the initiative should be delivered over the life course with a health promotion (salutogenic) approach, a pathway that supports all age groups, emphasises disease prevention and operates on a policy-driven health promotion agenda. It supports individuals to perform prophylactic behaviours over the life course, thereby delaying age-related disability and health problems in the population. Support occurs through policy-oriented campaigns to encourage lifelong prophylactic behaviours, an introduction of health promotion curricula at all educational levels, research to test the effectiveness of longitudinal health promotion interventions and the use of the mass media to improve awareness about health risks and healthy behaviours. Our proposed health promotion approach can have a positive influence on healthy behaviours across four societal layers (i.e. national, community, family or groups and individuals) and can be rolled out through the core action plans of the Decade of Healthy Ageing.