Three Innovations for a Virtuous Cycle of Health, Wealth & Equity
By Michael Hodin
From generative AI to electric vehicles, we’re seeing a wave of new tools emerge and promise to reshape our lives. However, in today’s era of longevity, the most impactful innovations will be those that help people achieve lifelong health and wealth. Innovation in this area can fuel a virtuous cycle: healthy aging prevents chronic conditions, acute emergencies, and associated costs, while enabling a longer period of earning, saving, investing, engaging, and staying active.
But there’s still much work to do. Badly outdated assumptions continue to hold sway in both areas, contributing to poor health, high care costs, financial precarity, and widespread inequities. Just consider research from the TIAA Institute that finds more than half of Black Americans don’t have enough savings to retire, and women retire with 30% less income than men. Overall, 40% of U.S. households risk running short of money in retirement. At the same time, Black and Hispanic Americans continue to face higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, Alzheimer’s and dementia, and other chronic diseases that can lead to escalating healthcare costs.
Progress depends on innovation — updating our models, assumptions, and tools for modern long lives. As experts recently discussed at a roundtable on Innovation & Equity for Healthy Aging, hosted by GCOA and Georgetown University AgingWell Hub, people need to think about financial, physical, and mental health differently when they can expect to live into their 80s, 90s, and beyond.
Here are three innovations for healthy aging and financial security — with an emphasis on equity:
· Promote longevity literacy, flexible career paths and lifelong learning as we see from TIAA Institute Research and Reports. It’s past time to shift from the outdated “learn-work-retire” model to a far more flexible approach. In the new model, people understand and plan for the financial needs of longer lives (including potential care costs), have more channels to save and invest, and can both work and learn throughout all stages of life (also helping them stay active, engaged, and healthy). Employers, policymakers, and the financial services industry all have a role to play by promoting financial literacy and ensuring greater access to the tools for lifelong financial security.
· Shift from “diagnose and treat” to “predict and prevent.” We also need a paradigm shift in healthcare, from a 20th-century model that focuses on treating infectious disease in hospitals to a 21st-century approach that works towards proactive healthy aging. Just as outlined in the UN/WHO Decade of Healthy Ageing, this should be a goal for every country and community, based around the pillars of Age-Friendly Environments, Combatting Ageism, Integrated Care, and Long-Term Care. When done effectively, preventative care can avoid health emergencies and mitigate the high costs of acute care, for families, health systems, and government budgets.
· Embrace widespread adult vaccination. The recent approval of an RSV vaccine only adds to the growing arsenal of adult vaccines for everything from pneumococcal pneumonia to influenza to shingles. Some are even discussing the potential of future vaccines for heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s. Adult vaccination is a “best buy” for individuals and health systems, helping to prevent the high costs and lost productivity of serious infection. Yet 100 million adult vaccine doses were missed during the pandemic — underscoring the need for far more awareness, coordination, and uptake.
While adult vaccines and 401(k)s may not capture headlines, they are in fact some of our most important tools for what matters most. As individuals, we realize their value over time — in stronger finances, avoided illnesses, and better health. As societies, we realize this value at scale — in more sustainable costs, lower disease burden, and greater productivity. That’s meaningful innovation, but only if we can achieve greater adoption, equitably across society
