OPINION ARTICLE
The Working Environment as a Platform for the Promotion of Active Aging: An Italian Overview
Nicola Mucci1, *, Eleonora Tommasi1, Gabriele Giorgi2, Giulio Taddei1, Veronica Traversini1, Massimo Fioriti1, Giulio Arcangeli1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2019Volume: 12
First Page: 20
Last Page: 24
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-12-20
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101912010020
Article History:
Received Date: 31/7/2018Revision Received Date: 13/12/2018
Acceptance Date: 14/1/2019
Electronic publication date: 31/1/2019
Collection year: 2019
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
European data confirm a gradual and constant aging of the population. The reduction of risk factors for chronic diseases and the improvement of health care have increased life expectancy in general. In January 2018, Italy recorded a mean age of 45.2 years (two tenths more than 2017). “The 2018 Ageing Report”, an economic paper of the European Community, predicts that the European Union would go from having 3.3 working-age people for every person aged over 65 years to only two working-age persons. If this happens, welfare systems would no longer be able to cope up with health and pensions. It is important to offer people the tools to get old better. The World Health Organization defines active aging as the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security to enhance quality of life as people age. The working environment is the perfect platform for the promotion of policies aimed at maintaining the psychophysical abilities of the elderly worker. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health recently proposed the Work Ability Model to understand and manage wellbeing in the workplace. This scheme suggests a multilevel action to guarantee the elderly worker an optimal stay in the workplace. An active aging promotion program and an adequate risk-assessment can reduce injury risk, increase productivity and health benefits for elderly workers.
