In an ageing world, it’s never been more important for countries to invest in preventative health. The Healthy Ageing and Prevention Index, created by ILC-UK, is a global index that ranks 121 countries against six indicators relating to healthy ageing and prevention: life span, health span, work span, income, environmental performance, and happiness.

The Index brings together health, wealth and societal metrics in one place for the first time. This allows us to compare how sustainable different countries are, both in terms of longer lives and the extent to which their governments are investing in efforts to prevent ill health and support healthy ageing.

Of the top 20, only a third are non-European. These include Singapore (ranked 5th), Australia (ranked 6th), Canada and New Zealand (jointly ranked 11th), Israel (ranked 13th), and Japan (ranked 17th).

With an average population of only 8.4 million, the top 10 countries account for only 1.1% of the world’s population, while the top 50 account for just over a quarter. This demonstrates significant inequality across the 121 countries ranked by the Index.

Our analysis finds that there are significant inequalities between countries at the top and bottom of the Index:

• There is a 24-year gap in life span (life expectancy) between the top 10 and bottom 10 countries.
• There is a 21-year gap in health span (healthy life expectancy) between the top and bottom 10 countries.
• There is a 23-year gap in wealth span (working life expectancy) between the top and bottom countries.

The US, China, and India have the largest number of older adults across their populations and could significantly benefit from investing in healthy ageing and disease prevention but are ranked 31, 50, 102 respectively.

If the UK’s target of five extra healthy years by 2035 was met in 2019, it would be the best-performing country jumping 27 places from its current 28th position on the health span metric, ahead of Japan, the healthiest country on the Index. But unless the UK ups its current spend on prevention from 4.8% of the overall health budget to 6% this is an ambition that feels increasingly unlikely as the target date approaches.

In addition to ranking individual countries on their performance, the Index also ranks political and/or economic country blocs, such as the G20, EU and OECD. This information gives stakeholders another way of demanding action on sustainable longevity from their governments. Scandinavia is the top performing economic/political bloc, followed by the G7 and the EU.

Looking at the ranking of countries across the Index, we see that there is a strong relationship not only between health and wealth, but also environmental performance and happiness. So, investing in prevention has ripple effects across society.

This year, we will formally launch the Index as an online tool to coincide with the 76th World Health Assembly. We will engage with world leaders and senior policymakers at the G7 and G20 summits and ministerial meetings.

The Healthy Ageing and Prevention Index is made possible by charitable support and grants from Amgen, GSK, Hallmark Foundation, MSD, Pfizer and Sanofi.