The 2014 Portico health self-assessment (the most recent results available) found that ELCA clergy and rostered laypeople are at risk for high blood pressure (56 percent), poor emotional health (59 percent), poor nutrition (71 percent) and being overweight (72 percent). Every year Portico invites plan members to complete a health assessment, which provides financial incentives for plan members who participate in healthy lifestyle activities. Portico provides benefits for ELCA rostered and lay employees. According to the coach, teaching confirmation wasn’t an acceptable answer. “Well, teach confirmation,” was her response to the question from a health coach provided by Portico Benefit Services. “That’s how we build a healthier world,” Galea said.When asked what she did for fun outside of church, Karol Hendricks-McCracken, pastor of New Salem Lutheran Church, Turtle River, Minn., couldn’t answer. Spending an ever-growing amount of money on medicine will not necessarily make us live longer, Galea argued, but investing more in areas that can improve our quality of life can ultimately help us lead richer, healthier lives. significantly cut the motor vehicle death rate in the 20th Century, even as more and more motorists hit the road. Promoting seatbelt use and investing in infrastructure to build better, safer roads helped the U.S. Galea also offered an example of how investments in public safety have improved overall health in the past, citing the country’s efforts over several decades to cut down on deaths from car accidents. “Investing in biotechnology alone is not enough, and it’s never going to be enough.” We have to invest in the structures around us that generate health,” Galea said. “We have to invest in building a healthier world. Likewise, investments in public transit systems can reduce air pollution, improving quality of life, and saving cities money in associated health costs.
better put its trillions of dollars in annual health spending to use? Galea argued that more of that money should be invested in public health improvements in areas such as early childhood education, which saves taxpayer money down the road with reductions in crime and teen pregnancy. “Treatment by itself is never going to be enough,” Galea said. As an example, he cited cancer treatment, where less than 20% of new cancer drugs are actually proven to increase patients’ survival time-and, even then, the average increase in survival time may only be a few months. While many new treatments exist that can help prolong your life, Galea said, such extensions are often only for a limited amount of time. not getting Alzheimer’s at all?” Galea asked the audience at Brainstorm Health. “How many of you would rather have a drug that effectively treats your Alzheimer’s, vs. spends on health care each year is directed toward treating diseases, with the rest going toward disease prevention. “We actually want to live a long and healthy life until we die,” Galea said.Ĭlick here to subscribe to Brainstorm Health Daily, our brand new newsletter about health innovations.ĭuring a talk titled “Dying Healthy,” Galea noted that at least 95% of the more than $3 trillion the U.S. In other words, no one is going to live forever. Speaking at Fortune’s second annual Brainstorm Health conference in San Diego on Wednesday, Galea said no amount of technological advancement will change the fact that there is a natural limit in terms of life expectancy and recent research suggests that humans will never live much longer than 115 years. health spending going toward extending the lives of older Americans would be better put to use investing in social, economic, and environmental infrastructure advances that could improve overall quality of life. What’s more, he says, we have a medical system where the ultimate goal is often to extend life as long as possible, even if those extra days come with the trade off of quantity over quality.
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