A blog covering the health/care ecosystem and people.

Most Americans believe it’s very important for the nation to lead in scientific achievements. But twice as many Democrats as Republications, 65% versus 32%, say the U.S. is losing ground in science innovations. The Pew Research Center asks and answers the Do Americans Think the Country Is Losing or Gaining Ground in Science? And the answer is, “millions of people do think so.” The Pew team polled 5,111 U.S. adults in late October 2025 for this research.                 There are a few political chasms related to science-trust in the U.S. that are important

Why was Progresso Soup and its manufacturer General Mills at CES 2026? Specifically, in the AgeTech Collaborative curated by AARP? If you are part of the health/care ecosystem in any of its segments, chances are you’re attending conferences at the start of 2026 or soon to attend one. I spent last week at CES 2926 in Las Vegas getting updates on digital health, well-being, and self-care innovations. This week, hundreds of my colleagues are attending #JPM2026, the 44th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference held in San Francisco every year at this time. One conference that would not have been well-attended

Aging and longevity are key themes driving technology innovations and markets, and walking the miles of aisles of CES 2026 demonstrates the expanding landscape of the role of tech in healthy living across the lifespan. I spent time at the AARP AgeTech Collaborative space this week as I did last year (here was my write-up of AARP and CES 2025 for historical context). In experiencing this year’s portfolio of AgeTech collab partners, from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies in the mix, was informative, inspiring, and even energizing as someone who has been a member of AARP since turning 50 some

A key Tech Trend to Watch at CES 2026 is consumers’ re-imagining and fitting out their homes as sites for bolstering health and well-being. I’ve been tracking this concept as far back as 2011 when I wrote this post from the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.                   A decade-and-a-half later, in déjà vu spirit, the concept is no longer theoretical or futures-thinking. Fast forward from 2011 to the COVID-19 pandemic, when everyone’s home spaces became re-purposed for health, for medical care, for well-being, for fitness and exercise, for cooking up nutritious food, for

For well over a decade, wearable technologies have been developed for humans from head-to-toe — from forehead-worn bands to address stress and headaches to smart shoes with sensor-embedded soles that assess our gait and posture. In 2013, my CES coverage had a focus on “The Battle of the (Wrist)Bands.” This year, the #wearabletech category feels like a fierce competition for the human real estate of the finger — that is, a battle of the smart rings. Twelve years later, smartwatches are mainstream trackers for health embedded with sensors that are gaining clinical evidence for use in medical care well beyond

Increasingly, people are engaging more in health care decision making due to many factors impacting their personal medical choices — from the cost and access to health insurance to co-payments for prescription drugs and the supply of primary care doctors, more patients developed and exercised their health consumer muscles in 2025, For 2026, the health consumer muscle-building will grow as people will be re-shaped by macro market factors we are currently gleaning from forecasts looking into the new year: for personal finances, social issues, technology adoption, views on AI and privacy, and other issues. Here are some data points to

From GLP-1s to longevity and new views on self-care for healthcare, the people are taking their health in-hand, at-home, and via-tech to complement and sometimes replace the legacy health system touchpoints which are the traditional categories for care: hospitals, doctors, rehab centers, diagnostics and labs, and health care financing and plans — some opting out of plans and going full-risk (cash, out-of-pocket) truly self-insuring against future medical risks. As I prepare to publish my Year-End/New Year TrendCast for 2026, I felt like front-ending next week’s annual long post with details on the demand side of the forecast — a focus

Enthusiasm for innovation is not a guaranteed thing; furthermore, trust in AI lags trust in the overall technology sector, we find in the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer research through a Flash Poll: Trust and Artificial Intelligence at a Crossroads, discussed in a webcast on 3 December. People in the U.S. are more than twice as likely to reject the growing use of AI than embrace it, with the embrace of AI much lower than peoples’ enthusiasm for it. Edelman conducted the poll in five countries — Brazil, China, Germany, the UK and the US — with sample sizes at least 1,000+

Cost is a leading reason why people say they could not obtain the fertility care they need. But the costs of IVF and other forms of fertility care lie within a larger home economics framework of family-building and -raising.             The context and costs of raising a child in America. Consider the layers of a household budget starting with the home’s “macro”-economics of income. Then within that circle, especially in the U.S., the factor of whether that household is covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. The next layer of more health micro-economics in the family is the