Life expectancy in the Netherlands will hit 86.5 years by 2050, up from 81 in 2022
The average life expectancy in the Netherlands will be 86.5 years in 2050, almost 5 years higher than in 2022, the RIVM said in its new Public Health Future Exploration. The aging population continues to put an increasing burden on healthcare. Climate change will also have a greater impact on people’s health, and health differences will not decrease in the coming years. The RIVM urged the government to be consistent with its healthcare policy and also consider how policy in other areas, like education, work, and housing, impacts people’s health.
“The demand for care will continue to grow in the coming decades. This requires sharp choices in healthcare,” The RIVM said.
With more people growing old healthily, the Netherlands needs to make an effort to ensure that elderly people can continue to participate in society. This is important for vitality and health, the RIVM said.
“At the same time, the number of elderly people with health problems like dementia is increasing rapidly, as is the number of people with chronic illnesses,” the RIVM said. That means an increasing demand for care, that cannot always be provided due to also increasing staff shortages.
The aging population combined with healthcare staff shortages will also put more pressure on informal carers. “The number of people aged 75 and over who require informal care will more than double to 650,000 between 2022 and 2050, but the increase in informal carers will lag far behind.”
The RIVM also noticed that young people have an increasingly unhealthy lifestyle. Obesity will increase significantly in the coming years, and increasingly start at a younger age. More and more young people are also struggling with their mental health. The health institute stressed that it is important to invest in young people’s health. “For example by limiting the number of sales outlets and advertisements for unhealthy food and by paying attention to reducing performance pressure.”
“Another important development is the impact of climate change on the living environment and health,” the RIVM said. In the coming years, more people will suffer from heat stress, the risk of infectious diseases spreading is increasing, there will be more skin cancer, and more people will die from the heat. Climate change can also cause more mental stress. “To counteract these consequences, a healthy design of the living environment is important. This can be done, for example, by providing more greenery in cities.”
All in all, the health differences in the Netherlands are not decreasing in the coming years, the RIVM said. “This means that people with a worse social position live in good health on average 14 years less than groups that are better off,” the public health and environment institute said. Poverty, uncertain income, poor housing conditions, and a lack of social networks contribute to this.
There are many public health challenges for the government to tackle in the coming years. The RIVM recommends a “steadfast, clear, and concrete policy,” pointing out that prevention is a matter of years and decades. “The effects of measures against, for example, an unhealthy lifestyle will only be visible years later.”
The RIVM advised the government to set clear health goals in its policy and realize that many tasks are interrelated. “It is necessary to tackle them together, with public health as the central focus,” the institute said. “It is also important that, in addition to new measures, the health policy that is already in place, such as anti-smoking policy or policy that encourages exercise, is continued.”
