SAN JOSE, May 26 (Pres Latina) The Costa Rican Ministry of Health announced today that it has adjusted the National Strategy for Healthy Aging from the 2022-2026 Life Course, so that people reach old age with optimal functional potential.
According to projections from the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), the demographic change in Costa Rica will maintain a decrease in the proportion of the young population and an increase in the older population.
The governing body for public health of this Central American nation says INEC figures show that the population under the age of 15 will continue to decrease over the next 40 years, reaching 956 thousand 183 people in 2050.
The foregoing, points out Salud, shows that Costa Rica is undergoing a transition toward a population that continues to age, with trends toward higher life expectancy and declining birthrates.
Such data show and confirm hypotheses of an accelerated aging process.
Costa Rica’s Vice President and Minister of Health, Marie Munive, explained that this national strategy contributes to the promotion of healthy lifestyles and the conceptualization at the country level of a model for comprehensive development for aging.
It is intended to guide the formulation of policies and social partnerships through institutional and local projects, integration of health services, long-term care and the promotion of research related to factors that promote active and healthy ageing.
The strategy establishes areas of intervention, activities, managers, deadlines and indicators for compliance with the defined lines, he maintains.
It added that it was prepared jointly with the support of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) with actors from the public and private sectors and civil society involved in the issue.
PAHO/WHO Representative to Costa Rica, Alfonso Tenorio, said that their organizations recognize the country’s commitment to promoting healthy ageing, understood as a process that addresses the life course.
This, he explained, means providing conditions so that people of all ages have the conditions to grow and be healthy until advanced stages of life.
He noted that Costa Rica’s national strategy is closely aligned to the four areas of action of the World Health Organization’s Decade of Healthy Aging, which seek to change the way we think about ageing; and ensure that the abilities of older people are nurtured.
Likewise, they continued to offer integrated care focused on the individual; and provide access to health and long-term care services in a way that quickly meets the needs of older people.
“Costa Rica is an example country for the region by keeping this issue as a national priority and working hard on it,” Tenorio stressed.
