Popular education, health promotion and active aging: an integrative literature review

Population ageing is a global phenomenon and requires actions to promote well-being and prevent illnesses and unnecessary hospital admissions. The objective of this study was to identify education and health promotion actions aimed at promoting active aging. An integrative literature review was conducted of relevant articles written in Portuguese, English and Spanish published between 2005 and August 2018 using the following electronic databases and virtual libraries: Lilacs, MEDLINE, SciELO, and BVS. The initial search resulted in 2,069 articles, of which 33 met the inclusion criteria. The analysis showed that the actions identified by the review promoted the adoption of healthy habits and participation of older people, characterizing them as actions that promote active aging. However, the actions were limited almost exclusively to this age group, which may lead to age segregation, and focused on old age rather than adopting a life course perspective of active aging. Despite the importance of these actions, only 11 were evaluated, suggesting that the evaluation of education and health promotion actions to demonstrate effectiveness and promote replication in other locations or services is not very common practice.