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Will a rethink on offices benefit older workers?
As the great pandemic of 2020 infiltrates every corner of our lives, there is one place perhaps more than any other that has been affected. This is the office, the defining building type of the 20t...
The Next Normal After the Pandemic: Boost in Workplace Automation
The coronavirus pandemic is set to generate the ‘next normal’ in the workplace by accelerating automation. It’s not just that during times of recession companies strive to cut cos...
The political convenience of the “best science available” and a “mountain of data”
In early March, in the early stages of the UK’s response to the COVID-19 crisis this Blog discussed whether experts now know what they are talking about, based on the observation that governm...
Reaching older people in a crisis: learning from experience?
In a recent policy brief on Coronavirus and ageing, the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs declared that the virus mean that the world was grappling with “an unparalleled he...
Using a nanny cam to safeguard my mother's health
A couple of years ago, I attended a talk at The Oxford Institute of Population Ageing on "Speculative Design." A colleague who worked in the area of digital health walked us thr...
Leveraging design expertise for an ageing society
Two uncontested facts about the UK: first, we have an ageing population that can be especially vulnerable in a public health crisis; second, we have one of the world’s largest and most advanc...
COVID-19 in the Middle East and North Africa, MENA Region
It has been several weeks since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. Different countries have reported different infection and mortality rates. Spain, Italy and t...
Notes on religion and spirituality in later life
For some time, I have wondered about the relationship between spirituality/religion and well-being in old age. What kind of evidence is there that they promote good physical and mental health and g...
COVID-19 Impacts on Young and Old
We are living through one of the worst health crises in recent history. Let’s begin with what we know about this virus. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that can cause serious respiratory dise...
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COVID-19: The uncertainty of the data and the importance of mild or asymptomatic cases
Since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, we have been overwhelmed by numbers, data and statistics. Right, but what do these statistics and data mean? What do they really tell us? The truth is, ...
Corona Virus – Life could never be the same again
Life could never be the same again. For many families life will never be the same as they face the loss of dearly loved family members. For the rest of us, life could change if we start now to buil...
Older people bear the burden of spread of coronavirus
There is a dire need for suitable responses to the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic for older people living in low- and middle-income countries such as Pakistan. In the limited time since the o...
A note on pensioner poverty
Official statistics in the UK measure pensioner poverty in two basic ways - either by looking at the income of pensioner households/individuals relative to the UK median income or by looking at a m...
So, do experts now know what they are talking about?
On Thursday 23 June 2016 the EU referendum took place and the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. I am sure we all remember either with pain or with pleasure the campaig...
Changing Occupations in an Ageing Society
More and more consumer products targeted at older people are coming onto the market in Japan. This can be seen, for example, in the way that electronics manufacturers such Sony and Panasonic are in...