Making Healthy Choices: Primare Care and Prevention

Hiroshi Komiya­ma, Pres­i­dent of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tokyo and Chair­per­son of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cil on the Chal­lenges of Geron­tol­ogy I am a mem­ber of, just pro­vid­ed coun­cil mem­bers with a brief update of his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the recent World Eco­nom­ic Forum.

Part of the pro­ceed­ings are pub­lic — you may enjoy read­ing this pan­el write-up of the ses­sion Health­care under Stress:

- “Japan has the world’s old­est pop­u­la­tion. Health and longevi­ty cre­ate wealth and, thus, “health begets wealth”. It is doc­u­ment­ed that nations that devel­op a five-year life expectan­cy advan­tage also cre­ate a larg­er GDP. A healthy child­hood and adult­hood con­tribute to a more pro­duc­tive old age. New mar­kets and indus­tries are aris­ing – “sil­ver indus­tries” such as finan­cial ser­vices, health, hous­ing and hos­pi­tal­i­ty geared to senior cit­i­zens. Longevi­ty needs to be linked to health – includ­ing cog­ni­tive health – and lifestyle choic­es play a major role in health.”

- “The pub­lic health focus is shift­ing from infec­tions to car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases. Com­plex new mod­els are nec­es­sary to devel­op bet­ter respons­es and improved health – with the pri­ma­ry empha­sis on “real­ly good pri­ma­ry health­care” and pre­ven­tion – to low­er costs. Pre­ven­tion increas­es the healthy years of a person’s life. The chal­lenge is cre­at­ing the incen­tive for pre­ven­tion: how can peo­ple be encour­aged to make healthy choic­es? Mobi­lized pop­u­la­tions can dri­ve the change. Fin­land has an 80% low­er inci­dence of heart dis­ease than 30 years ago due to such incentives.”

Full write-up: Health­care under Stress

Relat­ed articles:

- The Future of the Aging Soci­ety: Bur­den or Human Capital?

- Update: Glob­al Con­sor­tium for Neu­rocog­ni­tive Fit­ness Innovation