yuGlance: Prevention in the 2020s

The new government Green Paper, "Advancing Our Health: Prevention in the 2020s" has a lot of food for thought. yulife examines the key learnings and what companies can do to help.

Thanks to technology and scientific advancements, the field of medicine has completely changed. We can now cure illnesses that used to spell a death sentence only a few decades ago, and together with our lifestyles changing heavily from highly active to highly sedentary, governments, doctors and researchers all around the world are trying to remedy the epidemic of the 21st century: chronic, lifestyle-induced illnesses.

At the same time, we live in the age of data. We carry our smartphones everywhere with us, some of us wear smartwatches on our wrists at any given time, and all of us track and collect our everyday activities constantly.

At yulife, we try to take this modern superpower and use it for good, using smartphones to improve and maintain healthy habits through behavioural science. Our analysis of the government's Green Paper shows that the UK government agrees.

Healthy boost

The paper recognises the importance of preventive medicine: promoting healthier lifestyles to prevent illness, rather than only treating it once it happens. It identifies the three biggest challenges to our health today: smoking, obesity, and mental ill-health. Two thirds of adults in Britain are either overweight or obese, a rate that has doubled since 1993. Regular physical activity can reduce the risk of hip fractures by 68%, type 2 diabetes by 40%, heart disease by 35%, and depression by 30%. The report also stresses that mental ill-health is associated with reductions in life expectancy of 10 to 20 years, and that health is not just the absence of illness, it's a state of wellbeing too.

The solutions in the report split into four groups: technology and data, personalising support, promoting mental health literacy, and moving from treatment to prevention.

Technology and data

Using technology means more proactive, predictive medical treatment, able to solve problems before or as early as they occur. The ubiquity of technology allows the NHS to integrate personal data into health plans and treatments, and lets individuals interact with their own treatment plans more easily. The NHS has already started implementing digital solutions: a Southwark digital check-up tool texted people who hadn't responded to an in-person offer, and a third of those contacted agreed to a digital check-up, more than a tenth of whom were found to be at high risk for heart attack and stroke.

Personalised support

The wealth of data and technology available enables far more focused, personalised medical support. Instead of offering the same check-ups and screenings to everyone, there's now the technology to tailor necessary check-ups based on individual risk, more intrusive for higher-risk individuals, less for lower-risk ones. Personalised care can be less intrusive, better value for money, and catch conditions earlier, saving money on treating them and what follows.

Mental health literacy

Despite a decade of rising mental health awareness, many people still lack the skills, knowledge, and confidence to maintain and improve their own mental health. Increasing that literacy, alongside school campaigns already underway, is one of the report's main objectives.

Treatment to prevention

All of the above culminates in the shift from treatment to prevention: using data and technology to build more personalised interventions for mental and physical health. It's also better value, for every £1 spent on public health interventions, there was £14 of benefit to wider society. The report supports further research, cross-department collaboration, and the launch of a Composite Health Index, similar to GDP, to give governments a real indicator of national health.