On July 24th, a white paper titled "Centenarian Health Criteria: From Passive Medical Care to a Health Optimization Paradigm" was officially released. This document was jointly compiled by the Asia-Pacific Longevity Medicine Society, the China Anti-Aging Promotion Association, and PA GoodDoctor (01833).
The report addresses China's deepening aging trend and focuses on the urgent public demand for a high-quality, healthy, and long life. It pioneers a localized, quantifiable centenarian health assessment system. This provides authoritative scientific guidance for proactive health management across the entire life cycle and the standardized development of the silver economy.
The Structural Dilemma of a Longevity Society: A Significant "Scissors Gap" Between Lifespan and Healthspan
The white paper points out that China's population structure has undergone profound changes, and the country has entered a longevity society. There are over 323 million people aged 60 and above in China, of whom approximately 45 million are disabled or have dementia. While the average life expectancy has surpassed 79 years, the healthy life expectancy is only 68.5 years. This creates a roughly 10-year period where the population faces chronic diseases, functional decline, and daily care needs, forming a clear gap between lifespan and healthspan.
The current medical system was established during the era of acute disease treatment, with a core focus on disease diagnosis and treatment. This model struggles to adapt to the new reality of high chronic disease prevalence and multiple coexisting conditions. This is a key challenge that the National Health "15th Five-Year Plan" aims to solve. The plan explicitly shifts the focus of healthcare development from "treating diseases" to "prioritizing health," advocating for the vigorous development of proactive health services and the construction of a comprehensive, full-cycle health service system.
Numerous shortcomings still exist in the health field: medical resources are concentrated on end-stage treatment with insufficient investment in preventive care; the fragmented specialist model lacks integrated management solutions for chronic diseases; single, static health check-ups fail to track trends in bodily aging; and the wellness industry lacks a unified and scientific evaluation standard.
Addressing the global challenge of longevity, the World Health Organization has made extending healthy life expectancy a key public health goal. The white paper proposes a three-tier progressive governance paradigm: "passive medical care," "proactive health," and "healthspan optimization." This moves from "treating existing illness" to "preventing illness" and "maintaining function." The goal is no longer simply to extend the length of life but to prolong the period of healthy, independent living with high quality of life and to shorten the period of disability, aligning closely with the national health strategy.
The Centenarian Health Standard Index: Establishing a Unified Scientific Benchmark for Longevity Management
To facilitate the implementation of this paradigm and fill the gap in industry standards, the white paper innovatively introduces the "CHLI (China Centenarian Health Standard Index)." It creates a six-dimensional, quantifiable assessment system covering the entire population from ages 25 to 105, breaking the traditional notion that "no disease means health."
This system covers six dimensions: biological age, physical function, metabolism and chronic disease risk, lifestyle and behavior, psychological and social status, and digital health trajectory. It is accompanied by the FSHI (Functional Sensory Health Index), which incorporates early warning indicators of aging such as vision, hearing, and smell. This enables precise assessment of individual aging rates and early prediction of potential risks like falls, cognitive decline, and worsening chronic conditions.
Based on this standard, the white paper establishes an evaluation system centered on healthspan, shifting the focus from whether physiological indicators are normal to whether an individual can maintain long-term independent living. The report predicts that with the development of proactive health management, national digital health construction, and long-term health management systems, the future health industry will gradually extend from traditional medical consumption to long-term health maintenance and healthspan management. Sectors like intelligent health monitoring, digital health management, and rehabilitation and functional maintenance are expected to see structural growth opportunities.
From Standards to Practice: Ping An's Health and Longevity Blueprint
Authoritative standards provide direction for the industry, but tangible implementation is crucial for realizing long-term value. As the core carrier of the group's "Integrated Finance + Medical and Elderly Care" dual-wheel strategy, PA GoodDoctor deeply participated in the research and release of this white paper. Through deepened industry-university-research cooperation with the Asia-Pacific Longevity Medicine Society and the China Anti-Aging Promotion Association, the company is leveraging the CHLI health standards and its multi-year accumulated four-scenario service network to continuously optimize its health service system.
Its launch of the "Ping An Home Care" service brand in May this year, in partnership with Ping An Life, is a key exploration in moving the "healthspan optimization" concept into practice. Ping An Home Care has built a "7-Greats" service system covering seven modules: sleep management, nutrition management, functional improvement, multi-disease management, medical guide, global medical consultation and medication sourcing, and smart monitoring. Through proactive intervention, full-process tracking, and systematic resource allocation, it helps a broad customer base to "get sick less, get sick later, and avoid major illnesses," thereby extending their healthspan.
After more than a decade of development, Ping An has constructed a comprehensive service network covering four scenarios: "Online, In-Hospital, At-Home, and At-Work." For "Online": PA GoodDoctor connects internally and externally with over 50,000 doctors, including 3,500 contracted expert physicians, and an AI doctor for second-level responses, providing 7x24 hour online consultations. For "In-Hospital": Ping An has built a hospital and doctor network covering over 1,300 overseas medical institutions, and its domestic cooperative claims service network includes over 37,000 hospitals. The "At-Home" scenario innovatively adopts a "Standard-Procurement-Supervision" model for end-to-end quality control of care services. "At-Work" serves over 95,000 corporate clients annually and provides health coverage for over 60 million employees.
This year is Ping An's "Service Upgrade Year." Focusing on three core customer needs—experience, safety, and elderly care—the company is continuously launching multiple service enhancement initiatives. It is reported that on July 28th, PA GoodDoctor will use the white paper's "Centenarian Health Standard Index (CHLI)" as its theoretical foundation. Collaborating with ecosystem partners, it will upgrade its life-cycle longevity health service system. This will offer quantifiable, trackable, and implementable health and longevity management solutions for people of different ages and health statuses.
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