Age-It: Ageing Well in an Ageing Society

Spoke 10 – Mainstreaming ageing by building institutional mechanisms for better and future-oriented health policy making and prevention
  • Work Package 5 (WP5) – Aligning the new health and social care policies to emerging needs: a bottom-up community-based systemic approach.  
  • Work Package 6 (WP6) – Investigating the gap between the needs of the ageing population and the institutional responses

Principal investigator:  

Spoke 10 leaders – Aleksandra Torbica (CeRGAS, Bocconi University), Gianluca Aimaretti (University of Eastern Piedmont)  

WP5 leader – Laura Formenti (University of Milano Bicocca)

WP6 leader – Aleksandra Torbica (CeRGAS, Bocconi University)

Team UB/Cergas:  

WP5 – Amelia Compagni, Maria Vittoria Bufali

WP6 – Aleksandra Torbica, Giulia Cappellaro, Giovanni Fattore, Simone Ghislandi, Andreea Piriu, Benedetta Pongiglione, Giulia Tarantino, Irene Torrini  

Partners: University of Milano Bicocca; University of Eastern Piedmont; University of Turin; University of Naples Federico II; INRCA

Sponsor: Next Generation EU, National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Investment PE8 – Project Age Age-It: “Ageing Well in an Ageing Society” [DM 1557 11.10.2022].

Duration: January 2023 – December 2025

Abstract:

The overall objective of Age-It is to provoke a quantum leap in Italy’s contribution to research on ageing, making Italy a benchmark for other rapidly ageing societies. Applying a holistic, interdisciplinary, and problem-solving approach, Age-It sets out to overcome the fragmentation of different perspectives on ageing, while setting the gold standard in terms of socioeconomic, biomedical, policy, and technological solutions for an inclusive ageing society.

In the wider context of Age-It, Spoke 10 specifically addresses the political responses to ageing. Given Bocconi University’s leadership role within Spoke 10, our common motivations are guided by the following core principles: (1) policy relevance, focusing on the direct applicability to policy formation/enhancement, (2) feasibility, ensuring practical implementation potential, and (3) impact scope, finding systemic, regional or national validity. Our involvement in WP5 and WP6 supports these principles as follows:

  • WP5 uses a bottom-up and participatory approach to map the needs, struggles and resources of the ageing population, their carers and involved professionals. The overarching aim is to align their experiences with the new health and social care policies in the NRRP, addressing the challenges entailed by their application, the workings of formal and informal care networks, visible and invisible problems and possible solutions, while offering guidelines for more integrated social and health policies.
  • WP6 aligns policy objectives with real-world requirements via the systematic identification of gaps in healthcare needs and service delivery, documenting conceptual and measurement challenges and highlighting the role of institutions and care providers across different contexts to directly and effectively inform policy adjustments. Activities involve systematisation of the scientific literature on the operationalisation of positive ageing models (e.g., healthy ageing); development of measurement tools for monitoring population healthy ageing outcomes and other methodologies for quality appraisal in interdisciplinary applications of ageing; tools and applications for investigating the relationship between community and hospital care.  

 

Material produced and publications:

“Chapter 5 – L’assistenza agli anziani non autosufficienti: trend nazionali e profilazione degli ospiti delle RSA lombarde”, Fosti, G., Longo, F., Manfredi, S., Notarnicola, S., Perobelli, E., Pongiglione, B., Rotolo, A. and Torbica, A. Observatory on Healthcare Organizations and Policies in Italy (OASI) Report, 2024.

 

Dissimination:

Wiki-Agelt platform

 

Presentations:

 Link to websiteLocationDate
1“Oltre l’età, oltre l’individuo. Sguardi interdisciplinari sul sistema che invecchia"University of Milano Bicocca, Milan (Italy)5 March 2024
2"Transitions in older age: an interdisciplinary meta-narrative" - Age-It 2024 General MeetingCa’ Foscari University, Venice (Italy)20-22 May 2024
3"Conceptualisation and Measurement of Healthy Ageing: Insights from a Systematic Literature Review" - Age-It 2024 General MeetingCa’ Foscari University, Venice (Italy)20-22 May 2024
4“Loneliness and personality in ageing: the heterogeneous effects of widowhood on elderly health outcomes” - European Health Economics Association (EUHEA) Annual ConferenceWU Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria)30 June-3 July 2024
5“Constructing a Composite Index for Healthy Ageing:  Addressing Measurement Gaps and Evaluating Potential Applications” – Italian Health Economics (AIES) XXIX National ConferenceUniversity of Naples Federico II, Naples (Italy)9-10 December 2024
6“The combined effect of being unmarried and social spending on hospital length of stay and costs” - Italian Health Economics Association (AIES) XXIX Annual ConferenceUniversity of Naples Federico II, Naples (Italy)9-10 December 2024