STAGE_web_events_HEALTHY HEARTS, HEALTHY AGEING (PIC)

STAGE SCIENCE FOR POLICY FORUM - HEALTHY HEARTS, HEALTHY AGEING: CONNECTING SCIENCE WITH THE EU SAFE HEARTS PLAN

Join us for the second STAGE Science for Policy Forum, Healthy Hearts, Healthy Ageing: Connecting Science with the EU Safe Hearts Plan on 12th November 2026, 12:30-14:00 CET.

About the Event

Populations across Europe are ageing rapidly, and whether these additional years bring health, independence and opportunity, or growing inequality and preventable hardship, depends on the policy choices made now about prevention and the design of health systems, environments and communities. Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases are among the most common long-term conditions in later life, and their impact reaches beyond physical symptoms to shape people’s confidence, relationships and independence. Some of the underlying risk factors are modifiable, and acting on them earlier in the life course, rather than only at the point of diagnosis or screening, can meaningfully change these trajectories. This is precisely the opportunity that the EU cardiovascular health plan: the ‘Safe Hearts Plan’ presents.

The STAGE Science for Policy Forum will look at how healthy ageing can be embedded within the Safe Hearts Plan and how STAGE research can help inform the development of individual Safe Hearts screening programmes.

STAGE is an EU-funded research project exploring how health across the life course shapes ageing outcomes. By examining biological, environmental, social and historical influences across people’s lives, not only in older age, the project aims to identify additional ways to support healthy ageing and reduce risk long before conditions emerge. Its findings support policies and investments that promote healthy ageing across the population, reinforcing that healthy ageing outcomes are shaped by both life experiences and biology, and that many age-related conditions are neither inevitable nor limited to later life.

The forum will share the latest project results, information and recommendations, including disease risk prediction models and evidence on life-course approaches and multimorbidity. Lived experience sits at the heart of the discussion. The forum will hear directly from patient representatives on why engagement in healthy ageing and cardiovascular disease policy is essential from the outset, alongside perspectives from a European Heart Network representative. Together, speakers and participants will explore how policymakers can consider healthy ageing within the Safe Hearts Plan, and how to embed it across the lifespan rather than at a single point of screening.

Confirmed Speakers

Chaired by Ximena Ramos Salas, European Association for the Study of Obesity (STAGE), the forum’s speakers will include:

James Kennedy

European Society
of Cardiology

Richard Stephens

European Society of
Cardiology Patient Forum

Prof.
Sylvain Sebert

Faculty of Medicine,
University of Oulu,Finland
(STAGE Coordinator)

Dr Álvaro Passi Solar

Artificial Intelligence in
Medicine Lab (BCN-AIM),
University of Barcelona,
Spain (STAGE Partner)

Who Should Attend

The forum is intended for policymakers implementing or planning EU Safe Hearts programmes, public health and cardiovascular researchers, healthy ageing specialists, patient groups, and other stakeholders working on cardiovascular health and healthy ageing. It will provide an opportunity to network and engage with peers and share knowledge and best practice.

REGISTER NOW

This is an open event so please do share with colleagues and your network if you think this may be of interest to them.