On 20 September 2025, the Director of the WHO Centre for Health Development (WHO Kobe Centre – WKC), Dr Sarah Barber, delivered a keynote address on “Innovations in long-term care” at the biennial SingHealth Duke-NUS Scientific Congress held in Singapore.
She outlined key trends in ageing and long-term care (LTC), highlighted shifts in thinking which would benefit economies, health systems and households, and shared some emerging areas of research, drawing from the recent book, The Care Dividend: Why and How Countries Should Invest in Long-Term Care.
“By 2100, the number of people aged 65 and over is projected to reach 2.4 billion, and the fastest growing segment will be those aged 80 and older. Population ageing is driving the need for LTC, yet countries spend relatively little on publicly funded LTC in comparison with health spending,” she told delegates.
Dr Barber co-edited the book by Cambridge University Press with Jon Cylus, Stefania Ilinca, Ludovico Carrino, Manfred Huber and George Wharton. WKC conducts research about innovations in service delivery models and sustainable financing to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage in the context of population ageing. Read more about LTC financing here.