Much progress has been made in tackling diseases around the world in recent years. However, there is growing evidence of antimicrobial resistance, which is thwarting efforts to improve health.
Much progress has been made in tackling diseases around the world in recent years. However, there is growing evidence of antimicrobial resistance, which is thwarting efforts to improve health. It's a topic close to the heart of professor Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer for England. In this month’s interview she explains the importance of global collaboration and changing medical practices if we are to reduce the estimated 700,000 deaths from antimicrobial resistance around the world each year.
We shouldn't forget the role that technology can play in helping us to better understand health and even improve outcomes for patients and customers. One example is wearable devices, where Lisa Altmann-Richer believes that there is lots more potential to use them to drive sustained changes in behaviour and improve health outcomes than we have already seen to date. There has also been talk of using selfies to underwrite policies. With the advent of facial recognition technology being built into the latest generation of smartphones, perhaps there is real potential to change the way we capture information about customers? Richard Keating shares his perspective on the potential implications for insurance.
With medical studies often providing contradictory views, and new technology creating ever more health data for us to analyse, Davies offers some advice; that we need to look very carefully at the evidence and do it over the long term. Something actuaries should certainly be good at.
Richard Purcell
Editor, @richardpurcell