MENU AI & Aging: Innovations & Challenges for Global Health
As advances in healthcare and standards of living continue to improve, life expectancy is increasing and countries worldwide are experiencing a demographic shift towards older populations. This shift brings many challenges and opportunities related to healthcare, well-being, and productivity. While healthy aging is as much a concern in the Global South as it is in the Global North, available data sources have historically tended to be restricted to the latter.
On Thursday, February 13, the Michigan AI Lab and the e-Health and Artificial Intelligence (eHAIL) program hosted an in-person discussion on the opportunities and challenges of AI-powered tools and approaches to enable healthy aging globally.
e-HAIL conveners Rada Mihalcea, PhD, and Akbar Waljee, MD, welcomed participants from the Medical School, College of Engineering, and other U-M units who braved the snowy weather to attend the event.
Josh Ehrlich, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor- Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, and Robin Brewer, PhD, Assistant Professor- School of Information, kicked off the event. Josh spoke about “New Horizons in Population Aging Data” and highlighted an upcoming extension of the long-standing Health and Retirement Study’s global portfolio to East Africa in the form of the Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing (LOSHAK).
Moving from population level data to individual experiences with AI tools, Robin discussed a number of her recent research projects around “Rethinking AI for Aging and Care.” In an example that particularly resonated with the audience, she presented a case study where elder adults and their caregivers provided feedback on whether they preferred the communication summaries provided by an AI tool versus the human version; despite initial mistrust of AI among study participants, a large percentage preferred the AI version or saw no difference.
Participants broke into smaller groups for table discussions that included a mix of domain experts in health, aging, survey research, and artificial intelligence. Led by discussion facilitators Michael Dykstra, Alanson Sample, Geoffrey Siwo, along with the two presenters, each table discussed challenges and potential paths to solutions in using AI approaches for healthy aging globally, based on their own topics, problems, and innovations. At the debrief concluding the session, some common threads appeared, including the issue of trust and literacy in AI tools; the importance of accurate, multimodal data collection and privacy; and the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration.
The ideas generated by the discussions will be the foundation for a planned whitepaper. In addition, the event is expected to lead to further conversations between attendees and the chance to build potential collaborations.
Questions?
Contact J. Henrike Florusbosch, Ph.D., e-HAIL Program Manager, at jflorusb@umich.edu.