Comprehensive public health action on population ageing is urgently needed. This will require fundamental shifts, not just in the things we do, but in how we think about ageing itself. The World Report on Ageing and Health outlines a framework for action to foster Healthy Ageing built around the new concept of functional ability. This will require a transformation of health systems away from disease based curative models and towards the provision of older-person-centered and integrated care. It will require the development, sometimes from nothing, of comprehensive systems of long term care. It will require a coordinated response from many other sectors and multiple levels of government. And it will need to draw on better ways of measuring and monitoring the health and functioning of older populations.

These actions are likely to be a sound investment in society’s future. A future that gives older people the freedom to live lives that previous generations might never have imagined.