“No amount of money ever bought a second of time.” For reasons unknown, that Marvel movie reference kept coming to mind as we prepared this week’s Think Global Health edition about aging. “Health” is often shorthand for extending human longevity. As caretakers, communities, and countries consider how to deal with a global population shift in life expectancy, some stand out in their approaches to and investments in supporting a growing number of older adults.
Contributors John Beard from Columbia University and Michael Hodin for the Global Coalition on Aging examine Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, where healthy aging is thriving. There, Governor Kuroiwa Yuji has pioneered an innovative approach called ME-BYO that is rooted in traditional Eastern medicine and suggests people are neither healthy nor sick, just somewhere in between.
Singapore, meanwhile, is on track to have a quarter of its citizens over the age of sixty-five by 2030. The country launched an Action Plan for Successful Aging in 2015, but Think Global Health’s Chloe Searchinger explains how the program still leaves women to bear a disproportionate amount of the caretaking burden at older ages.
HIV/AIDS continues to scar young populations in many parts of the world, but decades of advances in treatment and detection have led many patients to reach their later years. Caroline Diamond and Jonathan Cohen from the University of Southern California lay out the opportunities to enhance the quality of life for those with HIV by emphasizing person-centered, comprehensive approaches.
Last, we remember Henry Kissinger, whose career reshaped global relations during the Cold War but was stained by controversies around human rights and various U.S. interventions. CFR Senior Fellow David P. Fidler remarks that although Kissinger was “no oracle for global health,” his policies eventually stabilized the international system, which provided the conditions for countries to address health problems.
Until next week!—Nsikan Akpan, Managing Editor, and Caroline Kantis, Associate Editor
