Inclusive content - Age

How to talk about different age groups and stages of life.

Only include age if it's relevant, for example, with vaccination, screening or testing programmes for particular age groups. An example of this is chlamydia testing as tests are free for under-25s.

Stages of life

Here are some of the terms we use for different stages of life with some guidance about the ages they relate to.

When you need to be more specific, for example if you're writing about medicines dosage, give the actual age. For example, "teenagers aged 16 and over".

We use:

• fertilised egg: from conception to 14 days
• embryo: from 2 to 6 weeks
• baby: during pregnancy, at birth and up to 1 year. (Read more about how we use "baby" in the A to Z of NHS health writing.)
• toddler: 1 to 3 years
• child: 4 to 12 years
• teenager: 13 to 19 years
• young people: 16 to 24 years
• adult: generally from age 18 but this may vary. Be specific, for example: "adults aged 19 to 64"

Babies and toddlers

With babies and toddlers, we count their age in weeks up until 6 months, then months up until 2 years.

Our research shows that this is how people talk about their child's age. Healthcare professionals also use weeks and months in this way. It means we can be consistent and accurate when writing about a baby's milestones, vaccinations and development reviews.

Older people

We prefer to specify ages: over-65s, over-75s, over-80s.

In some contexts, we use "older person" or "older people", for example, where a health condition might affect people in their 60s or in their 90s.​

We do not use the words:

• elderly
• middle aged
• OAP
• old age pensioner
• pensioner
• senior

Help us improve this guidance

Share insights or feedback and take part in the discussion. We use GitHub as a collaboration space. All the information on it is open to the public.

Read more about how to feedback or share insights.

If you have any questions, get in touch with the service manual team.

Updated: September 2021