ANU Mongolia Institute Seminar Series 2024
The ANU Mongolia Institute hosts an interdisciplinary series of presentations on Mongolia. The sessions typically include a 45-minute presentation of recent research or fieldwork on a topic related to Mongolia or the Mongolian diaspora, followed by an opportunity to chat and get caught up on what the institute is doing.
Health and wellbeing of older Mongolians: a population-based survey
Like the rest of the world, the population of Mongolia is getting older. However, there has been hardly any research on the health of older people in Mongolia. In 2017-2018 a survey was conducted of a randomly selected sample of 975 people in Mongolia aged 60 to 93. About 50% lived in rural areas, 25% in ger districts of Ulaanbaatar and 25% in apartment districts. The World Health Organisation’s Study on global AGEing and adult health (WHO SAGE) methodology was used. The main findings were that: (a) older Mongolians have relatively high quality of life and satisfaction with life as a whole; (b) levels of disability were much higher in rural than urban areas; and (c) hypertension is a major health problem for older Mongolians, just as it is in those aged under 60 years.
About the speaker
Robert G Cumming AO
Bob Cumming is a Professor Emeritus in Epidemiology at the University of Sydney, based at the School of Public Health. He is also an Honorary Professor at the UNSW Ageing Asia Hub. Bob has mainly conducted epidemiological research into ageing and ageing-related diseases and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2020 for his work. He has contributed to population-based studies of ageing in Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar and the Philippines. In Mongolia he collaborated with the Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences to conduct a survey of 1000 older people. Bob is a co-investigator on the ARC Discovery Project 'Mongolian Medicine: different modes of multispecies knowledge transmission'.