GYA members and young scientists around the globe feel they have a role to play when it comes to working towards creating an age-friendly future globally. This claim is made in a GYA Conference Statement on ‘Creating a world friendly to all ages’,  published today.

The statement is a direct outcome of the GYA’s 8th Annual General Meeting and International Conference for Young Scientists in Thailand in May 2018, where participants discussed challenges and possibilities for sustainable and healthy aging. During the conference, GYA members, Thai scientists and other notable speakers raised and discussed pressing issues related to new patterns of global economic and population development.

The statement outlines four recommendations from the international, interdisciplinary perspective of young scientists and scholars in support of a sustainable approach to healthy aging:

  • Aging populations as a growing global resource:
    We should strive for communities in which older adults are respected, and their knowledge, skills, resources, and contributions are sought out and valued.
  • The global and local are intimately connected:
    There are global insights to be gained from local or traditional values, practices, technologies and interventions.
  • A combined effort is required:
    We need to draw from across and within disciplinary perspectives, theories, and methods, in dialogue with both industry and the arts.
  • Global perspectives are needed:
    It is vital to widen the centres of discussion, particularly across and between the Global North and South.

This GYA Statement emphasises the need to re-frame issues surrounding aging and to recognise and foster links between global and local developments. The GYA is well placed to contribute to these discussions and to inspire others to take charge of this age-friendly future, both individually and at a societal level.

Following the Annual General Meeting and International Conference in Thailand, the GYA and its members continue to be active in the field of health. The GYA Working Group on Global Health unites prominent young researchers from all over the world in discussions about global health policies (in relation to clinical medicine, public health, environmental health and social studies of health and illness).

See GYA News Release here.