Global-Agenda-Council

First Report of the Council on the Ageing Society

by

The Coun­cil on the Age­ing Soci­ety is one of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils cre­at­ed by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in 2008. It address­es glob­al issues asso­ci­at­ed with our age­ing soci­ety and has the task of chal­leng­ing pre­vail­ing assump­tions, mon­i­tor­ing trends, propos­ing solu­tions, devis­ing strate­gies, and mak­ing pub­lic pol­i­cy pro­pos­als. It is com­posed of sci­en­tists, pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers, aca­d­e­mics, physi­cians and busi­ness lead­ers, includ­ing our very own Alvaro Fernandez.

The first report of the Coun­cil on the Age­ing Soci­ety was pub­lished this month in Glob­al Pol­i­cy. In this ?rst pub­li­ca­tion [Read more…] about First Report of the Coun­cil on the Age­ing Society

Making Healthy Choices: Primare Care and Prevention

by

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

Global Agenda Council: the Challenges of Gerontology?

by

I announced two months ago (Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils: The Chal­lenges of Geron­tol­ogy) that I had been invit­ed to join a very stim­u­lat­ing new ini­tia­tive by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum.

—
Update (Novem­ber 2nd, 2008): my pro­pos­al is to cre­ate a Glob­al Con­sor­tium for Neu­rocog­ni­tive Fit­ness Inno­va­tion. Thank you for your com­ments below!

—
Next month, 700 experts will meet to dri­ve an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary agen­da cov­er­ing 68 top­ics (see below); 16 of us focused on the Chal­lenges of Gerontology.

Dubai To Host 700 Of The World’s Most Influ­en­tial Lead­ers From Acad­e­mia, Busi­ness, Gov­ern­ment and Soci­ety At First World Eco­nom­ic Forum Sum­mit on the Glob­al Agen­da (I did­n’t write the title of the press release…)

- “The World Eco­nom­ic Forum, in part­ner­ship with the Gov­ern­ment of Dubai, will hold its inau­gur­al Sum­mit on the Glob­al Agen­da in Dubai from 7 to 9 Novem­ber 2008. The Sum­mit is a new, unique gath­er­ing of [Read more…] about Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cil: the Chal­lenges of Gerontology?