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10

Championing health and tech

Open-access content Monday 9th October 2017 — updated 5.50pm, Wednesday 29th April 2020

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.

2

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.

Poor lifestyles and the increased risk of chronic illnesses like type IIdiabetes is another issue on Davies' agenda. But what can actuaries do here? Joanne Buckle and Tanya Haywood believe that actuarial skills can be valuable in helping to develop and evaluate solutions that can alleviate cost pressures in the UK’s National Health Service. 

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


This article appeared in our October 2017 issue of The Actuary .
Click here to view this issue

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The impacts of climate change on health

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly a quarter of worldwide deaths and disease burden are owing to environmental factors. As the environment changes as a result of climate change, what will happen to health?
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I write to express a mixture of sorrow and anger at the dismal attempt by the IFoA’s chief executive to justify the new TAS 100. He writes in his monthly column (The Actuary, September 2017, bit.ly/Actuarytransition): “In raising the TAS requirements to a higher level of principle, it makes sense at the same time to broaden their scope.”
Tuesday 10th October 2017
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Why carbon monoxide should matter to actuaries

Carbon monoxide, or CO, is a deadly gas emitted from appliances using any carbon-based fuel that burns (gas, coal, petrol, diesel, wood, etc).
Tuesday 10th October 2017
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Book review: Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Although not exactly a new book (first published in 1950), Foundation had a recent paperback edition released in September last year and is well overdue a review from an actuarial perspective.
Tuesday 10th October 2017
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Mergers and acquisitions deliver underperformance for insurers

Insurance firms that carried out a significant acquisition in 2016 saw their share price perform worse on average than those that didn’t for the first time in six years.
Wednesday 4th October 2017
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