An international commission will be convened to assess the challenges presented by global aging and demonstrate how these challenges can be translated into opportunities for societies globally. The commission will assess the evidence across three domains: social, behavioral, and environmental enablers; health care systems and public health; and science and technology to develop an integrated and comprehensive approach to this task. With equity at its center, particular consideration will be given to policy and practice; innovation; financing; and monitoring and metrics.

The commission will produce a Global Roadmap for Healthy Longevity with actionable recommendations to guide a wide range of stakeholders in devising integrated, systems-based approaches for improving the health span and cultivating the health, productivity, and well-being of older populations.

Specifically, the commission will:

1) Explore and recommend approaches to enhance social structures and living environments that strengthen socioeconomic and community support, and enrich the livelihoods of the elderly population. Special consideration will be given to social, economic and demographic determinants (e.g., education, training, employment/volunteer status, nourishment, income, social connectedness, culture, diversity, ageism, self-perceptions of aging, discrimination, and health inequities); environmental determinants (e.g., physical and built environments, community systems); and lifestyle, resilience, and behavioral determinants.

2) Identify and analyze potential approaches and reforms across the entire spectrum of institutions and systems that provide health-related services to aging populations, including clinical settings providing health care and treatment; community and home health care, including family and informal caregivers; and public health systems, health promotion and preventive services. Special consideration will be given to management of chronic diseases and multi-morbidities; nutrition; prevention across the life-course; social services; the eldercare workforce; workplace health; health insurance; and healthcare financing innovations.

3) Consider and put forward avenues for innovative and groundbreaking aging-related research and development across basic, clinical, pharmaceutical, social and behavioral sciences, bioengineering, information technology, and assistive technologies, and recommend ways to expand research funding and incentivize research in aging. Special consideration will be given to elucidation of the cellular and biological mechanisms of aging and regeneration; advances in information technologies including the development of large databases, machine learning, and artificial intelligence tools that will inform approaches to therapeutic interventions but also enhance quality of life; merging engineering technologies based on software and mechanical design; new business models for social innovation and social enterprises; and implications for investment in research and development, regulation, commercialization, and scalability, including issues pertaining to ethics and equality.

Where possible, the commission will coordinate with other related global initiatives to achieve an integrated and synergistic effort.