America's Lousy Report Card on Health & Well-Being

In this episode I focus on how our socioeconomic ecosystems affect our ability to flourish - or, more to the point, how they makes it harder for us to flourish. 

Early this year, 2025, as the Trump administration took power, a group of politically diverse scholars published a Report Card on American Well-Being. On the one hand, the economy is doing great - for the wealthy. But by most other measures the nation is floundering. We are a wealthy nation, but an unhappy nation. By many of the measures of well-being (health and happiness) the United States is doing worse than many other rich nations, and there has been a downward trend in our well-being since the 1990s, when the tracking began.

In 2021, medical anthropologist Daniel R. George and neuroscientist Peter Whitehouse wrote a provocative  and insightful book called American Dementia: Brain Health in an Unhealthy Society. They explored the political, economic, social and environmental factors that contribute to cognitive decline,  dementia and well-being. In this episode I revisit an interview I did with Danny George and focus on his insightful explanations of our "American Dementia."  

Danny George is a professor of Humanities and Public Health Policy at Penn State University and he is acutely aware of America’s malaise. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction - A Report Card on American Well-Being
• 3:23 Our American Dementia
• 5:13 Dementia Rates Were Declining
• 7:31 Market Fundamentalism Reverses the Decline
• 10:16 A Social Contract That Reduced Dementia Rates
• 13:48 Your Zip Code Predicts Your Brain Health
• 17:08 Ecopsychosocial Determinants of Dementia
• 20:04 Market Fundamentalism is Failing Most Americans
• 22:45 We Could Slow Aging and Delay Dementia
• 24:26 Age-Friendly & Dementia-Friendly Cities
• 26:03 Unhealthy Ecosystems Create Unhealthy Citizens
• 28:00 The 4 Cardinal Virtues that Promote Moral Well-being