Contextual Lecture: Longevity: Myths and Possibilities
Join Professor Sarah Harper, Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, to explore the challenges posed by our increasingly long lives.
There have always been long lived individuals. The challenge facing the 21st century is the sheer number of us and our children who are projected to survive to a century and more. As death has been pushed back across the life course, so that most people in high income countries can expect to reach age 80 and over, so our societies and communities need rethink our lives and the institutions which frame them. How did we attain such long lives? Will they be healthy or frail? Is there a maximum age a human can live to? And importantly how we can ensure that current and future societies are able to maintain wellbeing across these long lived lives, as well as equity within and between the generations.
Professor Sarah Harper is the Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing.
This lecture is part of the 2018 Contextual Lecture Series: Tomorrow's World - Intimations of the Future.