Building a Resilient Future through Holistic and Data-Driven Approachs to Life & Health

As we gear up for the Swiss Re Institute's Resilience Summit 2024 on 11-12 November, we wanted to highlight how R&D contributes to some of the most pressing life & health (L&H) challenges and enables us to explore innovative solutions to enhance our global resilience. 

The latest SONAR report by Swiss Re highlights that many countries are investing less than the recommended 7% of GDP in healthcare, leading to increased risks of pandemics, medical malpractice, and population decline. Hence, focusing on L&H research at the Resilience Summit is not just about addressing immediate health concerns for individuals, but also about understanding longer term challenges and the broader implications for society. 

The Summit brings together internal and external researchers from public and private sectors, to discuss and find applied solutions on a wide range of topics such as the impact of physical activity, the role of data and technologies in long-term mortality modeling, closure of the protection gap through financial inclusion, and the challenge of antimicrobial resistance.  

Aside from individual topics, we would also like to call for systemic thinking. The Joint Risk Resilience Partnership between the Swiss Re Institute and the AXA Research Fund is our attempt to holistically tackle risks that have cross-border, cross-sectoral cascading impact. The partnership between Swiss Re Institute and AXA Research Fund allocates EUR 1,000,000 over three years to top-tier research projects tackling systemic risks. The topic for the next research call will be Resilience Post Natural Catastrophes, which is key to societal resilience.   

Today, the link between L&H and natural catastrophes grows ever stronger. Climate change poses direct mortality threats through the physical impact of natural disasters. It also indirectly exacerbates health risks through air pollution and extreme heat, especially in more vulnerable regions. Rising temperatures expand the areas where drug-resistant microbes thrive and extreme weather events, like floods, disrupt sanitation systems and introduce resistant pathogens into the environment. Addressing L&H holistically with a view to developments in climate and natural catastrophes, is key to combat these interconnected challenges. 

I cannot wait to dive into these topics and build a more resilient future together with our business units as well as partners and clients globally.