Will GLP-1s Shift the Actuarial Curves for Life Expectancy? Swiss Re Models the Scenarios
The growing adoption of GLP-1 medications has already begun to transform society and industry sectors, along with helping many patients effectively deal with managing diabetes and obesity, and other conditions. There is growing evidence that this group of medicines is also bending the actuarial curves for life expectancy, we learn in the report, The future of metabolic health and weight loss drugs from Swiss Re. In the report, Swiss Re shares the company’s vision of metabolic health, a graphic for which is shown here. The company (smartly) takes a broad ecosystem view
“Trust is the #1 Public Health Issue” and Health Citizens Live in an “Information Abundant” World That, Counterintuitively, Underpins Divisiveness – the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer
It would sound like good news that more health citizens, globally, are engaged with more information about health – a health information “abundance,” by the look at the data. But it’s not such great news when we learn that said information abundance also underpins health citizens’ confidence in finding answers and making informed health decisions, we learn in the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer’s Trust and Health edition. In the U.S., the percent of people who felt confidence in their ability to find answers and make informed health decisions “plummeted,” in the words of the
When a Hotel Becomes Your Health Partner – Learning from Novotel and Accor
“Novotel Launches ‘Longevity Everyday.'” That’s the title of the global, France-based hotel chain’s press release, announcing the Novotel brand’s initiative to serve up healthy hospitality. Check out this video… Behind this strategic positioning decision, the hotel notes, “Accor data reveals that one in three travelers is taking daily steps to improve their mental and physical wellbeing, yet most longevity programs remain out of reach for many people. This gap between demand and accessibility has created a strategic opportunity that Novotel, Accor’s founding brand, is uniquely positioned to address.” This approach will extend to over 600 hotels operating in 67 countries
The New Health Consumer Mindset and Wallet: From GLP-1s to Trading Up for Health & Longevity
From GLP-1s to longevity and new views on self-care for healthcare, the people are taking their health in-hand, at-home, and via-tech to complement and sometimes replace the legacy health system touchpoints which are the traditional categories for care: hospitals, doctors, rehab centers, diagnostics and labs, and health care financing and plans — some opting out of plans and going full-risk (cash, out-of-pocket) truly self-insuring against future medical risks. As I prepare to publish my Year-End/New Year TrendCast for 2026, I felt like front-ending next week’s annual long post with details on the demand side of the forecast — a focus
Where Health Meets Beauty, Mental Health, and Faith: Learning from the Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella
What is a pharmacy? And what are “medicines?” I’ve been thinking about this question for some time, and had the opportunity to consider this in real-time in a sort of back-to-the-past-to-the-future moment when I spent time at the glorious Farmaceutica of Santa Maria Novella (SMN) in Florence, Italy (in longhand, the “Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella)” on 8th November. This meet-up at this 800+ year old institution is one of many touchpoints in my work and personal life between late October and late November, where I’m working on health/care issues in 4 Euro cities: starting with London in week
A Chasm Between U.S. Health Citizens: Is Vaccination a Personal Choice, or for the Benefit of All?
One of the only uniting factors in U.S. health care across political parties is that most of the nation’s health citizens, cross-party ID, trust doctors and their professional associations for reliable information on vaccines. Pediatricians in particular are mostly-trusted for vaccine facts, according to the KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust: Tylenol-Autism Link and Vaccine Policies, the latest in the Kaiser Family Foundation’s series on Health Information and Trust Tracking Polls. The biggest trust-chasm when it comes to sources for vaccine information is Americans’ split views on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary
Digital Divides and Disability – Ranking Health Determinants in a Digital Age: Learning from WHO and LSE
Among 127 health determinants, two rank highest: digital divides in the era of tech-enabled health and care: digital divides that shape a person’s political, economic, and social environment, and the person’s health/disability status. The digital transformation of health and care compel us to re-consider and re-frame social determinants of health in the “digital age,” which is what the World Health Organization in collaboration with the London School of Economics have done in research, published this week in the report, Addressing health determinants in a digital age. The report was funded by the European
All Heart – Thinking Hearts, Health, and Love in Valencia, Spain
The clinical evidence base continues to grow making the case that art and creativity can be drivers for health and well-being — as it’s proven to me in my own life. Most recently, cases have been made by Emily Peters, documented in her book Remaking Medicine; by Robin Strongin, advocate for arts, medicine, and well-being from her base in Washington, DC; and, by my Belgium-based colleague and friend Koen Kas whose book addressing themes of art and health will soon be published. I was inspired at the convergence of art and well-being during a visit on 20 September to the
Obesity is a Public Health Epidemic in the U.S. — The Case for GLP-1 Coverage, Affordability and Equity
“If the U.S. were sensible, weight management would be treated as a public health issue,” David Cutler writes in the JAMA Health Forum dated August 15, 2024. Dr. Cutler, distinguished economics professor at Harvard, talks about “the pathology of U.S. health care” citing the example of weight loss medications — in short, the uptake of GLP-1 drugs to address Type 2 diabetes first, and subsequently obesity. Dr. Cutler notes that the price of these drugs in the U.S. “far exceeds” that of other countries: specifically, 9 times that of the prices in Germany and the Netherlands
How to Get Better Care to More People? Address Burnout, Bridge Insights with AI, Embed Sustainability – the Philips Future Health Index 2024
Health care access is a challenge in rural and urban areas, cities and suburbs, and across more demographic groups than you might realize, as we see wait times grow for appointments, primary care shortages, and delays in screening plaguing health systems around the world. In the Future Health Index 2024, Philips’ latest annual report presents a profile of the state of health care focused on how to provide better care for more people. For the report, Philips surveyed a total of 2,800 healthcare leaders consisting of 200 respondents in 14 countries: Australia, Brazil, China,
An Antidote to Loneliness – Amazon’s 2023 Holiday Ad-Video Is A Lesson in Social Health, Aging and Love
To complement today’s sobering Health Populi post discussing Accenture’s 2024 Life Trends Study — an outlook for a decade of “deconstruction” based on technology and other trends in the ether — I share with you Amazon’s ad for this holiday season gift-giving motivation. The agency responsible for the campaign, Hungry Man and director Wayne McClammy, weave together a beautiful plotline of friendship, the Beatles’ In My Life, and a time-traveling image that captivated me. The evidence base on loneliness and aging is deep and quantifiable: loneliness can kill like a daily inhalation of a pack of cigarettes. It is up
Happy 75th Birthday, NHS – Through A U.S. Health Care Lens
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) turns 75 today. The NHS was the brainchild of Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan; he wrote in a statement to doctors and nurses in The Lancet on July 3, 1948, “My job is to give you all the facilities, resources, apparatus and help I can, and then to leave you alone as professional men and women to use your skill and judgement without hindrance.” This week in The Lancet, the editors assert, “The founding principles of the NHS put into practice 75 years ago are at risk of
Thinking Pharma on a Friday: Europe’s Big Reforms for a Health Union & the U.S. 50-State Fragments
The COVID-19 pandemic re-shaped European Union leaders to reimagine healthcare, public health, and health citizenship in the EU. Welcome to #HealthUnion, the hashtag that the European Commission has adopted with the vision of assuring access to medicines for all people living in the 27-nation EU area — regardless of socioeconomic status. On 26th April 2023, the EC unveiled the most significant reforms for the region’s pharmaceutical industry in twenty years. It’s really a package or “toolkit” in the words of EC Health and Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides for addressing several strategic health pillars
The US Healthcare System Outspends and Underperforms While Most People Live Paycheck to Paycheck
The U.S. is an outlier in the world for high health care spending, as well as in low achievement for life expectancy at birth — 3 years less than that in peer OECD countries — discussed in U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2022: Accelerating Spending, Worsening Outcomes, the latest look into American health system performance in a global context from The Commonwealth Fund. Another study published in JAMA this week talks about the Organization and Performance of US Health Systems, calling out the fact that, “Small quality differentials combined with large price differentials suggests that health systems have
Your Home as Clinical Lab: Withings Brings “Your Urine, Your Self” to #CES2023
We’ve all been morphing our homes into our personal HealthQuarters since the start of the coronavirus era. Millions of global health citizens have taken to telehealth who never used a health care “digital front door” before. Other patients adopted remote health monitoring to avoid perennial visits to doctors for managing chronic conditions like diabetes or heart disease. From the kitchen to the bedroom, our homes have become our health hubs. And now, to the bathroom and specifically, the toilet. Withings, maker of my personally favorite connected weight scale, announced U-Scan, a direct-to-consumer lab test platform that analyzes our urine from
Jane joined host Dr. Geeta "Dr. G" Nayyar and colleagues to brainstorm the value of vaccines for public and individual health in this challenging environment for health literacy, health politics, and health citizen grievance. Click onto the Pfizer Value of Vaccines site and you can watch four episodes covering the challenges with adult vaccination, the employer and health plan member's journey to vaccination, reimbursement, and collaborating for proactive prevention.
I'm grateful to be part of the Duke Corporate Education faculty, sharing perspectives on the future of health care with health and life science companies. Once again, I'll be brainstorming the future of health care with a cohort of executives working in a global health care enterprise.
Jane will be working with EU- and UK-based clients in September and October 2026, collaborating with stakeholders in digital health, public/community health, retail health, and growing opportunities for health-at-home. Stay tuned to her updates here on Health Populi on-the-ground as she lives the digital nomadic work-life in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and in London.