In This Newsletter
Highlights from Global Conference 2023
Improving Dementia Care
Events
New Publication and Media Highlights
Center Team Updates
From Our Board
Highlights from Global Conference 2023
The Milken Institute Global Conference, April 30–May 3, 2023, in Los Angeles, brought together leaders from across finance, health, geopolitics, leadership, and more to tackle the most pressing challenges and exciting opportunities of our time. Watch (or rewatch) any of the public sessions. Read more below for a summary of the sessions organized by the Center for the Future of Aging (CFA).
The Art of Aging: Humor and Other Ways to Age Well
Moderator Nicholas St. Fleur of STAT led our panelists through a lively discussion about the lifestyle factors that influence aging and the important role that laughter plays in longevity and leading a healthy life. Watch the full session on demand.
Panelists included Sarah Richardson, chief digital information officer at Tivity Health; Chip Conley, founder and CEO of Modern Elder Academy; Dani Klein Modisett, founder and CEO of Laughter on Call; and Lauren Miller Rogen, filmmaker and co-founder of HFC and member of the Alliance Steering Committee.
Lifestyle Medicine for the Brain: A Conversation with Deepak Chopra and Seth Rogen
Alex Witt, anchor of MSNBC Reports with Alex Witt, moderated a spirited conversation exploring the habits and practices we can adopt now to optimize physical and emotional well-being as we age. Watch the full session on demand.
Speakers included Deepak Chopra, founder of the Chopra Foundation, and Seth Rogen, writer, actor, and co-founder of HFC.
Hacking Aging: The Quest for Longevity
CFA Leadership Council and Alliance Steering Committee member Phyllis Ferrell from Eli Lilly & Company moderated a panel highlighting some of the steps we can take every day to age well and prevent disease. Speakers discussed the aging process, healthy longevity, risk factors for major diseases, the science behind innovations in diagnostics, and more. Watch the full session on demand.
Panelists included Howard Fillit, co-founder and chief science officer for the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and Alliance Steering Committee member; David Sinclair, co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology and Aging Research at Harvard University; Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences and Edna M. Jones chair in gerontology at the University of Southern California; and and Morgan Levine, founding principal investigator of the San Diego Institute of Science, Altos Labs.
Reframing Aging: Never Past Your Prime
Diane Ty, CFA senior director, moderated a panel exploring the portrayal of aging in media and marketing, cutting-edge research on perceptions of aging, and how the power of representation can change how we age. Watch the full session on demand.
Panelists included Stacy L. Smith, founder of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative; Charlotte Yeh, chief medical officer at AARP Services, Inc.; Stacy London, style expert and menopause advocate; Jennifer Wong, director of the Wallis Annenberg GenSpace; and Tracy Chadwell, founding partner at 1843 Capital.
Investing in the Age of Longevity (private session)
Rajiv Ahuja, CFA associate director, led a discussion on investment opportunities in longevity, which is a relatively new investment category. Longevity companies are leveraging emerging research on the underlying and shared pathways that increase risk of chronic conditions as we age and developing products to extend healthy aging to match increased lifespans.
Panelists included Eric Verdin, president and CEO at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging; Kristen Fortney, CEO at BioAge Labs; and Alexandra Bause, co-founder and venture partner at Apollo Health Ventures.
Center for the Future of Aging Advisory Board Meeting (private session)
CFA’s Senior Director Ty and Director Lauren Dunning co-moderated a lively conversation on fostering intergenerational connections. The conversation spotlighted and elevated solutions to meet the evolving needs of our intergenerational families, workplaces, and communities.
Panelists included Kristin McGuire, executive director of Young Invincibles; Eunice Lin Nichols, co-CEO of CoGenerate; Trent Stamp, CEO of the Eisner Foundation and CFA Advisory Board member; and Fernando Torres-Gil, director of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging and CFA Advisory Board member.
Improving Dementia Care
Our team was in Atlanta, GA, for the American Society on Aging’s 2023 On Aging conference and convened two panels related to dementia care.
“Building a Comprehensive System of Dementia Care Using Innovative Models,” featured CFA’s Ty with Zia Agha, MD, chief medical officer and executive vice president of clinical research for West Health, and Elizabeth Edgerly, executive director and regional leader of Alzheimer’s Association Northern California and Northern Nevada. The panel discussed California’s Master Plan for Aging, which integrates the groundbreaking work of the governor’s Alzheimer’s Prevention and Preparedness Task Force and has been a catalyst for change in dementia screening and detection, care planning, and hospital transitions, and explored innovations that can be replicated in the public and private sectors.
“Best-Kept Secret in Dementia Care: Adult Day Services” was moderated by CFA’s Ahuja and Ty was a panelist along with William Zagorski, CEO of National Adult Day Services Association, and Alliance members Sharon Hall, family care partner and young onset dementia advocate, and Anne Mancini, president of Peachtree Christian Health. The session examined opportunities to elevate the role of adult day services, which provide critical health and social support services to individuals with dementia and their caregivers, and discussed policies, practices, and partnership opportunities to sustain adult day service providers.
On March 21, our Alliance to Improve Dementia Care released its latest report, Guiding the Care Journey: Building Dementia Workforce and System Capacity through Care Navigation. A culmination of over 40 key opinion leader interviews and an expert roundtable in September 2022, the report addresses the challenges our health-care system faces as it prepares to meet the growing demand for care among individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). It recommends that implementing care navigation can help improve care and reduce costs by providing vital linkages between health and social care services and individuals living with dementia and their caregivers. In the report, you will find a framework for health systems, community-based organizations, and Medicare payers to implement care-navigation services.
In March, CFA’s Ty was interviewed for McKnight’s Senior Living article, “Care navigation can supplement dementia care workforce, fill in care gaps.” She emphasized that elevating a care-navigator’s role can help facilitate coordination and access to needed services, support caregivers managing the complex web of the health-care and long-term-care systems, and improve the quality of life for individuals with ADRD, even in senior living facilities. “The trust and day-to-day access by staff in senior living communities can provide important frontline observations and insights into changing care needs of residents and their family caregivers,” she said. “Dementia care navigators help manage across care settings—including senior living—and include those holding professional licensure or paraprofessionals trained in dementia care.”
Events
Our team at CFA, is working on a Financial Innovations Lab® sponsored by CVS Health and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC), taking place July 13, 2023, in Chicago. The “Innovative Financing & Care Models to Scale Affordable Senior Housing Solutions for Older Adults” Lab will bring together researchers and policymakers with business, finance, and practitioners to create market-based solutions to business and public policy challenges. The findings of this interactive lab will be publicly distributed and available by year-end 2023.
In April, CFA’s Ty and Ahuja provided mentorship and guidance to a diverse group of startup companies taking part in the Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator program. This program, conducted in partnership with Pivotal Ventures, a company founded by Melinda French Gates, focuses on fostering innovative solutions that address the unmet requirements of older adults and their caregivers.
New Publication and Media Highlights
The term “age-friendly” is widely used to describe cities, communities, health systems, and other environments, but little is known about how this is interpreted or what the term means to the public. To investigate the public’s familiarity with age-friendly and gain insights into its relevance to older adults, CFA utilized data generated by a survey of 1,000+ adults aged 40 and above to provide the age-friendly ecosystem field with insights into awareness and perceptions of the term “age-friendly,” highlighting opportunities to bolster understanding. Dunning, Ty, Associate Director Priyanka Shah, and Senior Associate Mac McDermott wrote for a special issue of Geriatrics titled, “Age-Friendly Ecosystems: Voices from around the World,” which was edited by president of the John A. Hartford Foundation, CFA Advisory Board member, and Alliance Steering Committee member Terry Fulmer. The article, “Awareness and Perceptions of Age-Friendly: Analyzing Survey Results from Voices in the United States,” was published on May 28, 2023.
Paul Irving, senior advisor for CFA, shared his insight in an article for WorkingNation into the need to recruit and retain older workers to solve immediate challenges in the workforce. In a challenging business environment, older, experienced workers offer employers greater loyalty and reliability. He noted that older employees bring a collaborative spirit and organizations benefit from the diversity of intergenerational teams. Irving also spoke on Changing the Narrative, a campaign to end ageism, providing his take on the question, “What if aging was unbound by ageism?”
Center Team Updates
Our newest addition to the team, Isabelle Shinsato, joins us from the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International, an international development agency, as a senior associate for marketing and communication. She is originally from Westchester, New York and is now based in Washington, DC. Isabelle is a graduate from Elon University, where she received a BA in strategic communications with a minor in public health. She is excited to expand her public health and aging knowledge in this role and looks forward to contributing to the dynamic work of the Center for the Future of Aging team.
The Center also has a new intern, Jennifer Rossano, joining the team this summer. Jennifer recently graduated with a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied the science of well-being and positive human functioning. She is interested in helping to shift the aging research, policy, and public health agendas toward a strengths-based paradigm that acknowledges the potential of older adults to grow, develop, and contribute to society across the lifespan.
From Our Board
Kathleen Brown, partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLC, was named to Pasadena Magazine’s “Top Attorneys 2023”.
Alice Bonner, senior advisor for aging at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and chair of Moving Forward Nursing Home Quality Coalition, spoke on the GeriPal podcast on how the US delivers, regulates, finances, and measures the quality of nursing home care.
Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, was featured in an article for phys.org highlighting that the longevity market remains untapped by many businesses, which tend to ignore older consumers in favor of young ones.
Angelique Chan, executive director of the Centre for Ageing Research and Education at Duke-NUS Medical School, presented at the International Clinical Ethics Conference 2023 on loneliness in Singapore and perceptions on the effectiveness of early interventions.
Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of Transamerica Institute, spoke with Yahoo Finance Live about retirement planning in a post-COVID world, explaining why everyone can improve on saving for retirement. She was also a panelist on, “Addressing the American Retirement Crisis,” at Global Conference 2023.
Pinchas Cohen was recognized as a University of Southern California Distinguished Professor in February for his work as dean of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology for more than a decade.
Joseph Coughlin, founder and director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, wrote an article for Forbes unpacking the idea that men see retirement as a destination, whereas women view it as a journey.
Jisella Dolan, chief advocacy officer at Honor, and her team led a day of programming at SXSW 2023 in March focusing on the longevity economy and investments in empowered aging, modern elderhood and rethinking our aging journey, and giving back to support older adults and family caregivers in need.
Ken Dychtwald, founder and CEO of AgeWave, was awarded the prestigious American Society on Aging President’s Award, for his outstanding contributions over the past year. Ken also delivered the keynote address at the On Aging 2023 Conference.
Phyllis Barkman Ferrell, global head of external engagement, Alzheimer’s Disease and Neurodegeneration at Eli Lilly & Company, was a speaker on “A Timely Diagnosis” at the World Dementia Council Summit 2023 in London.
Ruth Finkelstein, executive director of the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging at Hunter College, was a panelist on a session titled, “Reimagining DEI: Our Continuing Conversation” along with Paul Irving at the Center for Workforce Inclusion’s Equity Summit.
Mark Freedman, founder and co-CEO of CoGenerate, was interviewed on PBS News Hour providing his take on age diversity.
Linda Fried, dean of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, wrote, “I’m a Longevity Expert. Here’s Why I Tell My Students to Read the Obits,” for MSNBC.
Scott Frisch, executive vice president and chief operating officer of AARP, provided his insight for the Washington Post on how business leaders can better identify future risks in the workplace while adjusting for changing behaviors after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Terry Fulmer, president of the John A. Hartford Foundation, co-wrote, “The Need for Geriatrics Measures,” for Health Affairs, outlining the need for a geriatrics surgery measure and a geriatrics hospital measure combining three important and complementary initiatives that are of critical importance to the health and well-being of older people in our hospitals. The Alliance signed on to a letter circulated by LEAD in support of these measures.
Teresa Ghilarducci, director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School, wrote an article for Forbes highlighting the new jobs report, which showed low unemployment numbers but could also signal a possible recession.
Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, was a panelist on, “Reimagining Health through Prevention” at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2023. Watch the session.
Jennie Chin Hansen, independent consultant to Hirsch Philanthropic Advisors, delivered the Boston College Connell School of Nursing’s Spring Pinnacle Lecture in March highlighting health policy.
Bob Kramer, co-founder and strategic advisor of NIC, helped orchestrate the 2023 NIC Spring Conference in San Diego, which included a roundtable on middle market senior housing attended by CFA’s Dunning and Ty.
Abby Levy, managing partner and co-founder of Primetime Partners, was interviewed by the Bloomberg Businessweek podcast to talk about investing in the longevity market serving older adults. She also hosted Primetime Partners’ first Longevity Founders Summit in New York with the AARP AgeTech Collaborative.
Becca Levy, professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, contributed to an article for the Wall Street Journal diving into when people often start to notice the signs of aging.
Jennifer Molinsky, project director of the Housing an Aging Society Program at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, co-authored, “Centering the Home in Conversations about Digital Technology to Support Older Adults Aging in Place”.
Sarita Mohanty, president and CEO of The SCAN Foundation, was highlighted in a Yahoo Finance article providing her expertise on the prediction that middle-income seniors could face an assisted-living crisis in the next decade due to financial constraints.
Hon Pak, head of digital health at Samsung, was interviewed by Forbes on his vision to improve the health of billions of people through their devices and elevate connected care in the home. He was also a panelist for, “Building the Health Data System of the Future,” at Global Conference 2023.
Penny Pennington, managing partner at Edward Jones, was named one of Barron’s 100 Most Influential Women in Finance for her role as just the sixth managing partner in the firm’s 101-year history.
Rodney Slater, partner at Squire Patton Boggs, spoke on The Swift Hour to discuss lessons learned from the pandemic to rebuild from the divided state of civic society.
Trent Stamp, CEO of the Eisner Foundation, started the Eisner Prize Fellowship, a new program designed to support leaders pioneering innovations in intergenerational connection.
Fernando Torres-Gil, director of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging, was interviewed for a Los Angeles Times article outlining the crisis of high elder care costs and low wages of care workers.
Kai Walker, head of Inclusion Transformation, Retirement and Personal Wealth Solutions at Bank of America, and his group launched the 401(k) Participant Pulse, a new quarterly report series providing transparency into 401(k) plan participants’ confidence in retirement planning and overall financial wellness.