Speech by SMS Tan Kiat How at the 4th Research on Successful Ageing (ROSA) Symposium

Oct 22, 2024

Professor Timothy Clark, Provost, Singapore Management University,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my pleasure to join you today for SMU Centre for Research on Successful Ageing (ROSA)’s 4th Annual Symposium on Successful Ageing as we are here to listen to the findings and discuss this important topic. I will like to give a shoutout to our representatives from Singapore Live Panel, who contributed to many of the work here.

The symposium’s theme of creating age-friendly environments for successful ageing is a timely one. Singapore stands on the cusp of a significant demographic shift. With longer life expectancies and declining birth rates, one in four Singaporeans will be aged 65 and above by 2030. The number of older seniors aged 85 and above is also rising fast. We now have 64,000 older seniors, of which 60% are frail to severely frail and 4% are at high risk of social isolation. There are more seniors aged 65 years and older, and we also have many who are much older, 85 years and above, as our live expectancy increases. But a longer lifespan doesn’t translate to having a longer health span. Out of your longer life span, how much of it is spent being healthy, happy, able to move independently and able to care for yourselves. This is the challenge that we face, and we have a large number of older seniors who are frail or severely frail. So, this is something we have to bear in mind.

To help our seniors age well, we need to pay attention to various interacting factors. Many believe that healthcare is the most important factor. However, studies have shown that environmental, behavioural, social and economic factors can account for more than half of the variation in population health outcomes. So, it’s not just healthcare, but other intersecting factors, including environmental, behaviour, social economic factors, that influence outcomes, more than just healthcare. This is why we need a whole-of-society effort to address seniors’ needs across different domains – both the “hardware” as well as the “heartware”. 

Hardware – Physical Living Environment

Supporting active and healthy lifestyles

Let me start with the “hardware” or the physical living environment.

An active lifestyle makes a big difference in healthy aging. To encourage active lifestyles, we had designed our estates and towns in the early years to integrate a range of greenery and common spaces. Our Park Connectors, which have grown significantly over the years, allow people to walk, jog or cycle across different recreational areas. Extensive networks of sheltered walkways and footpaths also encourage residents to incorporate walking into their daily activities. 

We will continue to design our built environment with a focus on healthy and active living. In fact, the Recreation Master Plan is a key component of our ongoing Draft Master Plan 2025, through which we will curate a variety of recreational nodes and trails island-wide, and weave play and activity into our everyday spaces. 

Senior-friendly neighbourhoods and homes

As part of the national Age Well SG programme, we are stepping up efforts to help our seniors age actively and stay connected and engaged within their communities. These include significant investments in key areas such as housing and transport.

We rejuvenate our towns to create vibrant mixed-use developments, such as Kampung Admiralty and Heartbeat@Bedok which bring more amenities to the neighbourhood level. So we bring these amenities not just to towns or in central locations, we bring these amenities down to the neighbourhood level, closer to where people stay. This ensures that our seniors who wish to age in place, can access these amenities more easily.

We have also been upgrading our estates to support seniors in moving around safely. For example, the Silver Upgrading Programme and Estate Upgrading Programme introduce senior-friendly features such as barrier-free ramps, rest points and dementia-friendly way-finding features in HDB and private residential estates. We are not just focused on ensuring that they can move safely within the estate and neighbourhood; we are also concerned about how they can move around in their homes. 

Within HDB homes, we offer senior-friendly features, such as wall-mounted foldable shower seats and widened bathroom entrances, under our Enhancement for Active Seniors programme (EASE). This will help seniors go about their daily activities safely and more confidently. And most importantly, this will give their family members and caregivers a greater peace of mind.

Helping seniors stay socially engaged through design

Beyond infrastructural enhancements, it is also important to design our towns to facilitate building of community networks. This will help seniors stay socially engaged and active.

For example, Queenstown has one of the oldest populations in Singapore with more than 20% of its residents aged 65 and older. It’s one of the older estates in Singapore. This is why we chose to pilot the Health District @ Queenstown, which leverages the built environment alongside other care programmes to promote healthy and purposeful living across residents of all ages. To encourage inter-generational mixing, we have introduced new BTO projects, such as SkyResidence@Dawson, into the old areas of the town. This not only facilitates parents and children living close to each other for mutual care and support, but also ensures mixing through daily interactions at the shops, hawker centres and other community hubs. As we rejuvenate Queenstown, one of the older estates, and refresh the estate, we chose Queenstown as an important site for us to pilot or experiment with different ways of encouraging active ageing. We see it as kind of a greenfield site, where we can design the built environment to promote healthy and successful aging, and intergenerational mixing. This is an important project for us, and we want to gain insights and learnings from it that can be quickly replicated across the rest of Singapore. 

Heartware – Social and Community Engagement

Role of community partners

Next, let me touch briefly on the “heartware” and how community partners are making significant contributions by sharing their new perspectives and innovative ideas on how we can better support our seniors to age well and gracefully.

In Japan, for example, it is common practice for restaurants that open late at night or bakeries that open early in the morning, to take in elderly who may be lost or wander from their homes. A neighbourhood alert system can then be activated so their caregivers can be contacted to pick them up.

Here in Singapore, we have IDeAL@115 at a rental block in Ang Mo Kio, which is a grounds-up initiative where volunteers and various foundations offer health monitoring, meals and importantly, companionship. Of the 40 beneficiaries who are most in-need, about 10 of them are living with dementia. I hope to see more of such community-led initiatives across Singapore.

Empowering seniors

Another key ‘heartware’ element is efforts to empower seniors to remain active contributors in our society. Various studies have shown that seniors who are working or volunteering in the community had a positive perception towards ageing.

I was recently at the opening of Singapore’s first Ibasho project, which is part of Queenstown Health District. This new centre embodies Ibasho’s eight principles, one of which is that our elders possess a wealth of wisdom that is invaluable to our community. In Chinese there is a saying “家有一宝，如有一宝” ,seniors hold a wealth of wisdom that is invaluable to the community. Hence, seniors are empowered to lead at this centre. And we have already seen some seniors step forward to organise activities such as a digital clinic and community café at the Centre. I visited them when they launched and I was very encouraged.

The Ibasho was a project that started in Japan, and I met the founder, Professor Emi Kiyota, who shared with me her thinking behind the project, and I found her insights quite interesting. Her belief is that seniors can care for other seniors, and she shared personal anecdotes about why she started the Ibasho project. After the tsunami hit Japan almost a decade ago, many smaller towns have more seniors because the younger residents had moved to the cities to work. In a particular town, the seniors took it upon themselves to repair the town. Many said, “I am a carpenter; I am an electrician, I have certain skills, let me do this to repair and refurbish the town.” From that starting point, many seniors began to care for one another. For instance, when someone living with dementia, or with limited mobility needed help, other seniors came together to cook and deliver meals. It became a community of seniors caring for one another. 

In Singapore, our context and built environment are quite different, but creating community-led initiatives where seniors play a meaningful role, actively contribute and care for one another is an important part of the ‘heartware’. Seniors who play such a role feel much more empowered and feel a sense of purpose. This makes a real difference in their outlook of life and the emotional empowerment they feel. The purpose they feel in their social lives translates into better physical well-being as well. And of course, when seniors stay active, they meet new people. These social interactions are so valuable.

I hope to see many more such projects in Singapore. One more project that I want to highlight is Project Silverlight, which was conceptualised right here at ROSA, similarly empowered seniors to curate activities within their communities. I hear that one participant even taught Pickleball to the others, who had never tried the sport before.

Conclusion

From all of the various efforts by Government and community, it is clear that how we structure our environment – the parks, shops, common spaces, walkways, our homes – all these significantly shape the way people live their lives and engage with one another. And if we do it right, we set the foundation for a healthier, connected, and resilient community that supports our seniors.

As we continue to explore new ways to support seniors, robust research is key. I am heartened that there are ongoing discussions between ROSA and Government agencies on how ROSA’s research can inform our planning and policy work.

I would like to thank ROSA, the team and contributors, for bringing key stakeholders together at this symposium. I wish all a fruitful discussion. And may we age well and age gracefully, thank you.