22 September 2022, Professor ZENG Yi of the National School of Development at Peking University was selected for recognition by the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing Platform as one of the Healthy Ageing 50 – fifty leaders working to transform the world to be a better place to grow older.

Professor ZENG Yi

Fifty individuals from around the world have been recognized as part of the first ever Healthy Ageing 50. The individuals were evaluated by an expert panel of reviewers from across international organizations with over 500 nominations received across all Sustainable Development Goal regions.

“The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing offers us an unprecedented opportunity to put in place the right policies and services, so that more people experience later life in good health and can continue to do the things they value,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “I have the pleasure of recognising these world-changing leaders who, often with limited resources, show what can be done – and how – to improve health and wellbeing for older persons.”

The announcement of the Healthy Ageing 50 marks the 20-year milestone of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA) and the second year of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030). The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing is a call for multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral collaboration to create a world where all people can live long and healthy lives.

The Healthy Ageing 50 is a UN Decade of Healthy Ageing initiative supported by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), the World Economic Forum (the Forum), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Professor ZENG Yi is a professor of the National School of Development, and Honorary Director of the Center for Healthy Aging and Development Study, Peking University, professor of the Center for Study of Aging and Human Development and Geriatrics Division, School of Medicine, Duke University. Since 1998, Zeng Yi launched and led (as Principal Investigator) the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), the largest longitudinal study of the oldest-olds with compatible younger-old in the world. The CLHLS aims to enhance healthy ageing, wellbeing and quality of life of older adults and families’ happiness in China and worldwide. It innovatively examines how the social, behavioral, environmental, and genetic factors and their interactions may influence healthy ageing. Zeng Yi is broadly respected as a key policy advocator for China to change the one-child policy in order to better prepare for the population ageing. In recent years, he initiated a nationwide social practice program of “Respecting Aged and Caring for Children to Promote Intergenerational Assistance” and personally donated 1.0 million yuan to establish a fund for this initiative, which has progressed very well and obtained important social impacts.

The Healthy Ageing 50 initiative describes Professor ZENG Yi as “a role model for academics”, and “has made outstanding contributions to research and policy making in healthy ageing – for China and other countries around the world.”

For more information, please see:

https://www.decadeofhealthyageing.org/topics-initiatives/other-initiatives/healthy-ageing-50

https://www.decadeofhealthyageing.org/topics-initiatives/other-initiatives/healthy-ageing-50/zeng-yi