Mission and objectives
This Task Group’s mission is to realize data driven social change towards cognitively healthy aging society through exploring data issues for the purpose of developing technology and policy to help people live and age well, with special focus on maintaining cognitive functions until the very end of life. To tackle this challenge on cognitive aging, we need to develop new data-intensive science utilizing multiple domain data and knowledge. The objective of the Task Group is to declare recommendations on how the cross-domain data and knowledge should be collected and stewarded by academia, governments, and industries to realize data driven social change towards society promoting cognitively healthy aging.
Significance
In 2020 WHO reports around 50 million people have dementia worldwide, and there are nearly 10 million new cases every year. The number of people with dementia is rising rapidly, particularly because of ageing populations in low and middle-income countries. And Japan is now heading the world about aging society, expected to have about 7 million in 2025 after MHLW, which has been stressing Japanese society at a frontier of the world. It requires us not only proactive collaborations about health care for elderly persons as a well-organized human society but also adaptive for social transformations based on fundamental understanding on human behaviours as well as our changing environment.
Impact
Expected output of this Task Group is recommendations, which may be used as follows to realize society promoting cognitively healthy aging: 1) Policy makers in governments will refer to the recommendations when designing and implementing their policies to collect and steward data and knowledge for maintaining cognitive health; 2) Service providers in industries will refer to the recommendations when designing healthcare services to collect and steward data and knowledge for maintaining cognitive health; 3) Basic scientists in academia will refer to the recommendations when designing their studies to collect and steward data and knowledge for maintaining cognitive health.
In order to realize the expected impact stated above, we will submit our recommendation to our government officers and prime ministers. We may develop guidelines which can be implemented in LMICs considering cost effectiveness and feasibility.
Planned (and later on actual) activities and outputs for 2023-2025
- Recommendations on how the cross-domain data and knowledge should be collected and stewarded by academia, governments, and industries.
- Reports on online workshops, presentation at IDW2025
- Publication in referred journals which is based on the above recommendations.
Past Achievements
Prior to this Task Group, we have explored data issues for the purpose of developing technology to help people live and age well, with special focus on maintaining cognitive functions until the very end of life as the CODATA Working Group on “Creative Living and Aging through Cross-disciplinary Utilization of Data” since 2021 to 2023. We have organized a workshop, had presentation at International Data Week in 2023, focused our scope and proposed this Task Group.
- Working Group on “Creative Living and Aging through Cross-disciplinary Utilization of Data” (https://codata.org/initiatives/working-groups/previous-working-groups/creative-living-and-aging-through-cross-disciplinary-utilization-of-data/)
- Workshop: Technology aiding seniors at risk of dementia to reach their goals (https://codata.org/initiatives/working-groups/previous-working-groups/creative-living-and-aging-through-cross-disciplinary-utilization-of-data/workshop-technology-aiding-seniors-at-risk-of-dementia-to-reach-their-goals/)
- Presentation: SciDataCon Session “Data Frontiers in Social Sciences: Ethics, Integration, and Best Practices” at International Data Week
Contacts
Co-chairs:
Mihoko Otake-Matsuura, Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, RIKEN, Japan
Mike Martin, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
The TG Secretary:
Alexandra Janina Wolf, Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, RIKEN, Japan