Yin Zhigang

Yin Zhigang, Chairman of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Shanghai Senior Care Industrial Association and former director of the Shanghai Research Center on Aging, made a speech themed “Strategies about the Sustainability of the Aged Care System Based on ‘Shanghai Culture’”. He said that Shanghai is China's first aging region and the region with the highest proportion of aging population in China. In Shanghai, population aging is showing a new trend of rapid development, sharp increases in the total aging population, an obvious trend of aging, and an aging of the parents of only children. He noted through a series of analysis, that Shanghai is the first in China to propose a development framework based on home-based, community-based, and institutional support. It has taken the lead to deploy the “9073” old-age service structure, offering an important reference for the establishment of a new-type social pension service system in China.

John Troyer

John Troyer gave a speech titled “Post-WWII UK Research on Death and Dying - A Brief History”. He said, in the post-WWII English-speaking First World, the social debate about the concept of future dying and death itself became concrete in the 1970s. Over the past forty years an enormous body of research and discourse that addressed class, gender, disease, and end-of-life acceptance problems have sprung up. What is revealed by studying the Western post-WWII knowledge of death and dying is the eternal nature of the topic of death.

Lou Weiqun

Lou Weiqun, associate professor of the Department of Social Work & Social Administration of the University of Hong Kong, delivered a speech titled “Long-term Caring and End of Life Care: Challenges and Opportunities Facing Palliative Care in Hong Kong”. He pointed out that Hong Kong is a super aged society, and how to walk the “last mile” in life is an issue that social policies, services, families and seniors must focus on. By conducting research on Hong Kong’s policies concerning medical services, long-term care at nursing homes and community palliative services, and taking for reference foreign theories about palliative care, Lou Weiqun proposed challenges and opportunities in further improving and providing precise and seamless palliative service in the Chinese community.