ARE YOU PREPARED TO LIVE LONGER?

A new measure of longevity readiness indicates that for many Americans, the answer is no-and suggests what is needed to get on track.

- BY RICHARD EISENBERG

MIT AgeLab and the John Hancock Life Insurance Company recently partnered to create the Longevity Preparedness Index. What does the index measure, and what are you hoping to learn from it? The index asks Americans: Are you aware of what you need to do to be prepared for a longer life, have you assessed where you are now, and have you taken any action to be ready in the future? To get a read, we asked over 1,300 people questions about their social connections, finances, daily activities, care options, home, community, health, and life transitions and evaluated each domain on a scale of 0 to 100 to get a baseline of how prepared we are.

You found that most Americans are underprepared for longer lives; you give them a "D." What are we doing wrong?

It’s not so much that we're getting it wrong, but we’re hacking longevity because we have no precedent. We are living longer but don’t think about the practical aspects—where we're going to live, how we're going to get around. The point of the index is not to give people a grade, but to give them a heads-up. We're hoping it sparks a movement toward awareness and action.