The Lancet
Feb 07, 2015 Volume 385 Number 9967 p481-576 e5-e6
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current

Editorial
Don’t forget health when you talk about human rights
The Lancet
Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released World Report 2015, their 25th annual global review documenting human rights practices in more than 90 countries and territories in 2014. The content is based on a comprehensive investigation by HRW staff, together with in-country human rights activists. In his opening essay, HRW’s Executive Director, Kenneth Roth, writes, “The world has not seen this much tumult in a generation…it can seem as if the world is unravelling”. Indeed, this 656-page report is a grim read in a year marked by extensive conflict and extreme violence.

Comment
FGM: the mutilation of girls and young women must stop
Audrey Ceschia
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60176-3
Summary
Feb 6, 2015, marks International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, a day to reflect on one of the most cruel of human practices—an ancestral tradition that became a social norm—which has been tolerated for far too long. “Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons”, according to WHO’s definition. More than 125 million women have undergone FGM in 29 countries across Africa and the Middle East where FGM is concentrated.

Comment
Health in an ageing world—what do we know?
Richard Suzman, John R Beard, Ties Boerma, Somnath Chatterji
Published Online: 05 November 2014
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61597-X
Summary
The ageing of populations is poised to become the next global public health challenge. During the next 5 years, for the first time in history, people aged 65 years and older in the world will outnumber children aged younger than 5 years.1 Advances in medicine and socioeconomic development have substantially reduced mortality and morbidity rates due to infectious conditions and, to some extent, non-communicable diseases. These demographic and epidemiological changes, coupled with rapid urbanisation, modernisation, globalisation, and accompanying changes in risk factors and lifestyles, have increased the prominence of chronic conditions.

Series
Ageing
Causes of international increases in older age life expectancy
Colin D Mathers, Gretchen A Stevens, Ties Boerma, Richard A White, Martin I Tobias

Ageing
The burden of disease in older people and implications for health policy and practice
Martin J Prince, Fan Wu, Yanfei Guo, Luis M Gutierrez Robledo, Martin O’Donnell, Richard Sullivan, Salim Yusuf

Ageing
Health, functioning, and disability in older adults—present status and future implications
Somnath Chatterji, Julie Byles, David Cutler, Teresa Seeman, Emese Verdes