VISION member, Prof Mark Bellis, attends WHO European Network on Healthy Ageing

In December 2025, Professor Mark Bellis – a member of VISION and Chair of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Violence Prevention – attended an invite-only meeting of the WHO European Network on Healthy Ageing in The Hague, The Netherlands.

This meeting represented a significant step in joining WHO leads with academic and research partners to support the rollout of the forthcoming WHO European Strategy on Healthy Ageing: Ageing is Living – Promoting a Lifetime of Health and Well-being (2026–2030).

Over the course of one and a half days, participants worked to:

• Support the development of technical products, toolkits, guidance, and policy briefs to operationalise the Strategy.
• Identify key research gaps across the four action areas: prevention, transforming health and care systems, creating age-friendly environments, and reimagining ageing.
• Strengthen collaboration through the Strategy’s five enablers: leadership, investment, innovation, capacity building, and data and evidence.

Professor Bellis will continue to contribute to the implementation of the Strategy by enhancing global, European, and national evidence on abuse and vulnerabilities among older people, and by promoting the importance of a life course approach to prevention.