International Longevity Centre Global Alliance - Designing the Future of Ageing

21st August 2017

In July, Dr Alex Kalache, President of ILC-Brazil and Co-President of the Global Alliance, participated in a debate with Dr Anne Karpf, author of 'How to Age' and Prof Lynda Gratton, author of 'The 100 Year Life' for the BBC World Service.

The BBC World Service produced a News Hour Extra on increasing longevity. Owen Bennett Jones discussed with his guests, Dr Alex Kalache, Dr Anne Karpf and Prof Lynda Gratton if increasing longevity is a blessing or curse. The three experts, who overall see increasing longevity as a triumph of humanity, alerted that there is huge inequality in life expectancy between and within countries.

Amongst others, Dr Kalache raised the issue of long-term care and the question of care being a responsibility of the family or not. He recommends, “if you want to be well treated in older age, don’t be racist, because you are going to be surrounded by brown and black faces in the last stages of your life”.

To sum up the programme, Dr Kalache also mentions the importance of understanding and responding to the 4th Industrial Revolution and the impact it will have on our each time longer lives in the future. In his opinion, lifelong learning is one of the essential capitals we need to have to deal with the challenges arising from these global trends.

Listen to the full 50 minute programme on: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058m10c

Picture: Dr Alex Kalache (credits: Viviane Menescal)

Contact: Ina Voelcker, ina.voelcker@ilcbrazil.org