Population aging in Brazil: an analysis of current public policies in Coqueiro Baixo and Italva in the period 2019-2022

Abstract

The research starts from a literature review about the aging process, which is a current phenomenon. For the first time, the number of elderly people will exceed the number of young people. This scenario brings several challenges to the public administration, especially with regard to the well-being of the elderly population. Because without the well-being of this population, the added years will be marked only by the loss of physical and mental capacities. Considering this, the general objective of this research is to understand which public policies are necessary in Brazil for the elderly population to have well-being considering the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), contained in the World report on aging and health, which establishes five abilities that must be developed by the elderly for healthy aging. In order to delimit the studied target audience, we will be considered the public policies implemented in the period 2019-2022 in two Brazilian municipalities (Coqueiro Baixo and Italva) where there is the highest proportion of elderly people. From the public policies cataloged through interviews and research on official government websites, it will be verified whether these policies have the explicit goal of developing any of the abilities recommended by the WHO. With this, it will be possible to draw up a summary table showing which policies achieve these abilities, and thus identify which public policies need to be implemented. It is worth mentioning that similar research was applied by the applicant in the Swedish context, in the city of Umea. Furthermore, this methodology could be applied in future research in other cities.(AU)