Good health adds life to years

This brief approaches ageing from a life-course perspective. Rather than artificially categorizing life into stages such as “middle age” or “old age”, it assumes that we age from the moment we are born. Nevertheless, for statistical purposes it is often necessary to divide populations into age groups. The analyses we have used generally apply 60 years and over as a statistical cutoff, however, for various reasons, some analyses refer to populations of different ages such as 50 years and over, 65 years and over or 80 years and over. Recognizing the differing experiences of these subpopulations