HealthyWomen Launches Coalition to Redefine Midlife Brain Care

The coalition unites employers, medical associations, health systems, and researchers to address a systemic failure in American healthcare. By aligning stakeholders—including insurers, clinicians, and community organizations—the group seeks to shift the perception of brain health from a late-life concern to a proactive, midlife priority. HealthyWomen CEO Beth Battaglino emphasized that the current infrastructure is insufficient to combat the disease, noting that the time to act is significantly earlier than traditional protocols suggest.

Operating across three pillars of perception, education, and policy, the initiative aims to treat cognitive screening with the same regularity as blood pressure or cholesterol checks. The steering committee features prominent organizations such as the Alzheimer's Association, the National Health Council, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. With support from strategic partners like Eli Lilly & Company, the coalition intends to bridge the coordination gap that has hindered previous, siloed efforts. Given that nearly two-thirds of Americans living with Alzheimer's are women, the organization plans to leverage its four-decade history of patient advocacy to ensure the initiative addresses biological risk factors and equity gaps directly.