Consider these recent developments:
• In 2011, as the fi rst members of America’s baby boomer
generation reached retirement age and the world’s population
crossed the 7 billion threshold, pundits and policy makers
considered the impact a rapidly aging population would have on
our planet’s scarce resources.
• In September, the United Nations General Assembly convened a
global summit on a health issue that poses an urgent and global
threat. The UN has convened such a summit only once before —
in response to the AIDS epidemic — and it’s remarkable that the
2011 summit focused not on an infectious disease pandemic, but
on the threat of “non-communicable” chronic diseases.
• That same month, the Obama Administration hired Constance
Steinkuehler as a White House senior policy analyst with a truly
unconventional mission: analyze the potential for using video
games to improve outcomes in health, education and a number
of other areas.