Public Lecture: Living longer - a social revolution

Date: 19 July

The last 50 years have seen profound changes in death rates for several major groups of diseases, particularly heart disease and cancer. A number of changes in lifestyle and healthcare have produced these dramatic effects, which have led to marked increases in life expectancy leading to a dramatic change in age distributions across the population. This lecture looked at what has driven these changes, the challenges created by having a much larger number of elderly individuals, and contrasted this with the continuing challenges which exist in the care of the youngest and most vulnerable members of our community.