It’s time for a healthy aging strategy for Canada’s Veterans

Canada’s Veterans are an aging population, and many Veterans in this cohort are positioned to age with increasingly complex health and social needs. These changing circumstances have created a need to determine whether existing systems and services can support this generation of Veterans. In this article, the authors envision a healthy aging strategy for Canada’s Veterans to support their overall health and well-being and enable aging in the right place. Healthy aging presents an opportunity to shift the emphasis in Veteran care to one that is more proactive and preventive and holistically focuses on lifelong health and well-being. To achieve this, the authors begin by detailing why it is urgent to reconceptualize Veterans’ care and what the concept of healthy aging offers. Last, they discuss how other countries have supported the healthy aging of their Veterans and collaborative practices to support this effort.