Canadian provincial, territorial, and federal government aging policies: A systematic review

Donna Marie Wilson,Jessica Anne Hewitt,Andrew Broad,Jane Osei-Waree

doi:10.4236/aar.2012.12005

Abstract

In most countries, population aging is becoming more evident now that the first members of the large babyboom cohort have reached 65 years of age. As an accelerating increase in the number of older persons and the proportion of the public aged 65 and older will now occur, planning for population aging has become ever more crucially important. A systematic review of Canadian provincial, territorial, and federal government documents was undertaken to search for the existence of population aging policies, and to determine the aims and other content of the most current policy documents. Documents were identified in all but two jurisdictions of Canada (two northern territories). Document developers, and the aims and content of the 14 reviewed documents varied considerably. Some similarities were identified, however, including some common stated purposes for these documents - to address current issues and challenges facing older people and to plan ahead for a preferred future with population aging.

Highlights

Population aging is becoming much more evident in Canada and most other countries, in large part because the first members of the large babyboom generation have begun to reach 65 years of age [1,2]
A wide range of authors was noted; including governments as a whole, a Special Senate Committee tasked with investigating population aging, a federal agency created and made responsible for public health in Canada, provincial health ministries, other provincial ministries or departments, and provincial advisory committees or secretariats with a mandate for seniors’ care and/or other groups that include seniors
It is apparent that the federal government and most other governments in Canada have been planning for population aging for some time

Summary

Introduction

Population aging is becoming much more evident in Canada and most other countries, in large part because the first members of the large babyboom generation have begun to reach 65 years of age [1,2]. Some futurists are suggesting that the babyboom cohort is more likely to be healthy and to work past age 65 as compared to previous cohorts [1,5], much concern exists in general about the impact of an aging population on the social and economic welfare of the country [3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11] This concern is not surprising, as health service utilization studies have consistently identified aging as a major factor in the need for and use of hospitals, nursing homes, home care and other health or supportive care services [12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]. Governments at all levels are perhaps the most important in this regard, as they are charged with creating and implementing needed public policy

Results

Discussion

Conclusion