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Health and place: How levelling up health can keep older workers working

Health and place How levelling up health can keep older workers working cover

This report, published by the International Longevity Centre UK, seeks to understand how the health of older people in the place where they live impacts on people staying in work for longer.

The Health of Older People in Places (HOPE) project is a multidisciplinary research project funded by the Health Foundation under the Social and Economic Value of Health in a Place (SEVHP) programme.

The research team includes scientists from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London (UCL) and the School of Geography at the University of Leeds.

The HOPE project has built on this research by showing the link between levels of employment and health in a place. It finds that:

  • The higher the proportion of older people with poor health in a place, the less likely it is that any adults in that place will be in paid work. 
     
  • How we measure health in a place matters.
     
  • Historically disadvantaged areas continue to struggle.
     
  • This disproportionately affects people in manual occupations.
     
  • There’s a correlation between health in a place and younger people being in paid employment.
     
  • Those working in professional occupations were more likely to be in work 10 years later than those working in elementary occupations or doing repetitive manual labour.