Older People Are Invisible in Key Data, Study Warns; New York Times, 9/9/15

Rick Gladstone, New York Times; Older People Are Invisible in Key Data, Study Warns:

"Vast gaps in data on older people threaten to undercut new goals established by the United Nations for raising living standards over the next 15 years, advocates for the aging said in a report being released on Wednesday.

Poverty rates among older people, a rapidly growing segment of the global population, are missing from data in at least 93 countries, many of them among the least equipped to compile this information, according to the report, the 2015 Global AgeWatch Index. It is created by HelpAge International, a nonprofit organization that calculates an index of the best and worst countries in which to grow old. But the index is based on data from only 96 countries, including all of the most developed and affluent.

“The big story this year in the index is that millions of older people are invisible, living their lives in countries where information on the quality of older age is missing from international data sets,” Toby Porter, chief executive of the organization, said in releasing the 2015 ranking. Of 54 countries in Africa, he said, there was enough data available to include only 11 in the index."