The Cochrane Global Ageing Thematic Group is committed to propelling research and enhancing practices to support healthy ageing and longevity worldwide.
About us
As we progress through the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030), our mission is to address the multifaceted challenges of global ageing and contribute to better outcomes for people everywhere.
At the heart of our mission is the drive to facilitate the development and maintenance of functional abilities that can ensure wellbeing in older age. Our group will serve as a dynamic hub for sharing and exchanging expert knowledge, aligning with global efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals in this area and mitigate the impacts of the global burden of ill health among older people. As ageing is a lifelong process, we take a life course approach to our activities.
Our team
- Antonia Ypsilanti, Lead. Associate Professor in Cognitive Psychology/Psychobiology, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
- Matthew Prina, Lead. Professor of Ageing and Epidemiology, Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK
- Monserrat Conde, Lead. Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Our plans
Our vision is to be a global hub for evidence synthesis and knowledge mobilization within our scope. Our main goal is to contribute to Cochrane’s evidence ecosystem by producing, supporting, and mobilizing high-quality evidence, and facilitating timely evidence-informed decision-making across all societal levels in global ageing.
Key focus areas
In collaboration with our partners, we will integrate health and social care perspectives from a range of areas, delivering comprehensive and actionable evidence:
- Leadership and expertise: We aim to lead in prioritizing evidence synthesis and supporting evidence production, ensuring our outputs have impact in the areas they are most needed.
- Collaboration and engagement: We will work closely with Cochrane Geographic and Methods Groups, fostering relationships that enhance local knowledge and strengthen evidence dissemination in this area. We will maintain and extend existing links with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Campbell Collaboration (for example, the Campbell Ageing Coordinating Group) to ensure that we use expertise across the world. Global Ageing cuts across several other Thematic Groups, so we will strengthen existing collaborations and create new ones to ensure we are capitalizing evidence synthesis.
- Capacity building: A key focus will be building capacity in low- and-middle-income countries, to address under-representation in evidence synthesis and ageing-related research. We will also work towards developing and strengthening ageing and life course-focused approaches in evidence synthesis and knowledge mobilization.
- Equity and diversity: By co-producing guidance and involving diverse communities in our projects, we will ensure our work embodies principles of equity and diversity, tackling ageing challenges amongst all communities.
Key priorities
- Adopt a life course approach to global ageing.
- Support the use of age-inclusive language across different cultures, contexts and evidence syntheses.
- Incorporate self-reported behavioural outcomes into evidence synthesis.
- Understand the interaction of multimorbidity and functionality, including its impact on quality of life.
- Collaborate with members of the public, stakeholders and policy makers.
Contact us
For more information about our work or to become involved with the Cochrane Global Ageing Thematic Group, please email us.
