Institute For The Future

  • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • IFTF Vantage Partnership
    • IFTF Foresight Essentials
    • Forecasts
    • Workshops
    • Maps
    • Artifacts from the Future
    • Events
    • In the News
    • Media Center
    • Gallery
    • History of the Future
  • Our Work
    • Featured Projects
    • Global Landscape
    • People + Technology
    • Health + Self
  • Partner with IFTF
    • IFTF Vantage
    • IFTF Foresight Essentials
    • Research Labs
    • Partners
    • Jobs
    • Donate
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • Future Now
  • Donate
Medium Facebook Twitter RSS
  • Global Landscape
  • People + Technology
  • Health + Self

Health Aware World Map

  • Featured Projects
  • Global Landscape

    • Ten-Year Forecast

    • Food Futures

    • Work + Learn Futures

    • Workable Futures

    • Cities Futures

    • Governance Futures

    • Inclusive Futures

    • Socialstructing

    • Sustainability

  • People + Technology

    • Smithsonian Futures Beacons

    • Tech Futures

    • Work + Learn Futures

    • Workable Futures

    • Games

  • Health + Self

    • After the Pandemic

    • Centering Health

    • Health Futures

    • Health Care

    • Health Games

    • Aging

INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT IFTF?

Contact us today »

Future NOW Blog

Identify Your Assets and Gaps: A Foresight Tool for Action

Oct 14, 2022

IFTF News from the Future #80

Oct 06, 2022

IFTF Equitable Enterprise Newsletter | September

Sep 28, 2022

Sparking a Sense of Hope & Agency

Sep 19, 2022

IFTF News from the Future #79

Sep 08, 2022

Browse all blog posts »

Health Aware World Map

Transforming health by bringing objects and environments to life

An astounding array of everyday objects—from food to furniture, buildings to bodies—is becoming interconnected across environments and scales. Over the next decade, as more than 50 billion objects become connected, they will take us beyond today’s landscape of wearable technologies and usher in a world of health-aware environments, where we can enlist homes, cars, clinics, and entire cities to support our health and well-being. As our world becomes aware and responsive, it will open up new opportunities to transform how we engage people in managing their health. mapface only of Health Aware World mapResponsive spaces and objects will create new opportunities to overcome personal and public barriers to engagement. They will suggest new approaches to behavior change and ways to manage health outside traditional clinical settings. Our health-aware world will engage us at just the times and places we need or seek help.

Perhaps more critically, opportunities will open up to move beyond a focus on increasing motivation toward expanding tools, services, and strategies that nudge us and shape our behavior through subtle, ambient reminders. By building in the most subtle ambient reminders, our health-world will lower barriers to engagement. And as open-source technologies and maker communities lower the barrier to entry in creating a health-aware world, the most engaged may not be those with the most resources. Tensions will inevitably arise as we apply these tools. We might come to rely too much on devices for decision-making, or choose to escape too often into virtual realities. We may risk losing touch with the physical world.

Despite these tensions, the potential of a healthaware world is one in which aware objects and environments can help us manage our health in more persuasive and personalized ways. Use this map as a source of inspiration to imagine new tools, services, and strategies in a health-aware world.

Research Publication Date

  • Public Release: Spring 2016
  • Member-only Release: Fall 2014

Download

  • Health Aware World—Full Map (PDF)
  • Health Aware World—Mapface Only (PNG)

Learn More

For more about IFTF's Health Futures Lab and research, contact:

Sean Ness | [email protected] | 650.233.9517

  • Institute for the Future

  • 201 Hamilton Avenue
  • Palo Alto, CA 94301
  • 650.854.6322
  • [email protected]

  • © 2023 Institute for the Future

    What We Do

  • Who We Are
  • IFTF Vantage Partnership
  • IFTF Foresight Essentials
  • Forecasts
  • Workshops
  • Maps
  • Artifacts from the Future
  • Events
  • In the News
  • Media Center
  • Gallery
  • History of the Future

    Our Work

  • Featured Projects
  • Global Landscape
  • People + Technology
  • Health + Self

    Partner with IFTF

  • IFTF Vantage
  • IFTF Foresight Essentials
  • Research Labs
  • Partners
  • Jobs
  • Donate
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

    Future Now

    Donate