Research Focus
The Innovation for Healthy Aging is a collaborative research project that seeks to identify and analyze different dimensions of productive public-private collaborations tackling innovation for healthy aging in East Asia. Building upon previous research collaborations, the project focuses on the roles of the government and private sector (both for-profit and not-for-profit).
The research encompasses three areas:
First, it explores collaborative governance in China and the United States, focusing on an important—and perhaps surprising—feature of policy efforts shared by the two countries, namely, public-private collaboration to forge prosperous, stable futures for their citizens. This study will result in a published volume co-authored with Harvard University professors Richard Zeckhauser and John Donohue (tentative title: Private Roles for Public Goals in China and the United States: Contracting, Collaboration, and Delegation). In addition to health care and elderly care, the book will include research into public and private roles in governance of multiple other sectors, including education, transport infrastructure, affordable housing, social services, and civil society.
Second, it investigates public-private roles and institutional innovation for healthy aging in China. This study analyzes the net value of hypertension control in China, applying a specific empirical methodology using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, and detailed patient-level data from the Zhejiang provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention for patients with hypertension in Tongxiang and Ningbouses. The data focuses on roles and incentives of public and private providers, patients, and insurers in controlling hypertension in China.
Third, it assesses public-private roles and institutional innovation for healthy aging in Taiwan. This study examines the roles of public and private hospitals in managing cancer patients in Taiwan, especially in using precision health and personalized medicine technologies.
Payers and regulators in health care are confronting rapid technology changes, but there is little Asia-specific evidence to guide their way. The Innovation for Healthy Aging project will make valuable contributions to the policy debates about precision medicine and healthy aging in East Asia, and to policy audiences working on proactive response to population aging in China, Taiwan, and comparable economies, particularly since hypertension and cancer are two of the most common chronic diseases.
