John Beard, MBBS, PhD

  • Irene Diamond Professor of Productive Aging (in Health Policy Management, Epidemiology and in the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center) at CUMC
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Overview

Academic Appointments

  • Irene Diamond Professor of Productive Aging (in Health Policy Management, Epidemiology and in the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center) at CUMC

Credentials & Experience

Education & Training

  • Bachelor of Medicine, 1979 Bachelor of Surgery, University of Adelaide
  • Doctor of Philosophy , 2002 (Medicine/Epidemiology), University of Sydney

Committees, Societies, Councils

2019-2022: Commissioner, Global Commission for Healthy Longevity, US National Academy of Medicine,

Washington DC, USA

2019-2023: Chief Adviser, European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Health

2018-2020: Member, Working group on “Transforming the future of Ageing”.

Science Advice for Policy by the European Academies

July 2016: Participant, G7 Health Experts Meeting, Tokyo, Japan

Editorial Boards

International Editorial Board: Public Health, Royal Institute of Public Health, London

International Panel, Public Health Research and Practice

Advisory Board, Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging, Springer

International Advisory Board, Oxford Textbook of Geriatric Medicine

Co-Editor Special Issue “Healthy Ageing”, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Oct 2017

Series Co-Editor, “Ageing and Health”, The Lancet, November 2014

Co-Editor Special Issue “Women Beyond Reproduction”, Bulletin of the World Health Organization Sept 2013

Honors & Awards

Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Adelaide, 2017

Fellow, United States National Public Health Leadership Institute 2002-2004.

Adjunct Professor, Peking University, China 2019-21

Visiting Professor, Toulouse University, Toulouse, France 2019-23

Research

Dr Beard’s research considers health from the perspective of functioning rather than the presence or absence of disease. While at WHO he explored how health trends differ between countries, sought to understand the factors that might influence these differences, and to develop and evaluate comprehensive, evidence informed, societal responses to the demographic transition to older populations.

He led the team that developed the WHO Healthy Aging framework and has undertaken an extensive body of work to conceptualize and operationalize the framework’s construct of intrinsic capacity – the composite of all the physical and mental capacities an individual can draw on. He has used large longitudinal studies across North America, Europe, Israel and China to determine population distributions and trajectories of intrinsic capacity, and recently reported a trend for better trajectories of capacity in more recently born cohorts in England and China. He is currently exploring the determinants of trajectories in the United States and starting to incorporate thinking on the complex dynamical biological changes that underly overt phenotypic change.

Selected Publications

1. Chen M, Hanewald K, Si Y, Gu Y, Beard JR. Intrinsic Capacity Across 15 Countries in the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe. JAMA Network Open. 2025 May 1;8(5):e259792. PubMed PMID: 40354051.

2. John R Beard, Katja Hanewald, Yafei Si, Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli Thiyagarajan, Dario Moreno-Agostino. Is 70 the new 60? A longitudinal analysis of cohort trends in intrinsic capacity in England and China. Nature Aging 2025, 5, 87–98

3. Beard JR, Si Y, Liu Z, Chenoweth L, Hanewald K. Intrinsic Capacity: Validation of a New WHO Concept for Healthy Ageing in a Longitudinal Chinese Study. Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biomedical Sciences and Medical Sciences. 2022 Jan 7;77(1):94-100. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glab226. PubMed PMID: 34343305

4. Beard JR , Jotheeswaran AT, Cesari M, Carvalho IA. The structure and predictive value of intrinsic capacity in a longitudinal study of ageing. BMJ Open 2019; 9 (11)

5. Cesari M, Beard JR, Araujo de Carvalho I, Martin F, Amuthavalli Thiyagarajan J, Reginster J-Y, Vellas B. Evidence for the Domains Supporting The Construct Of Intrinsic Capacity. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, Series A. 2018, 73 (12), 1653–1660.

6. JR Beard, A Officer, I Araujo de Carvalho, R Sadana, AM Pot, JP Michel, P Lloyd Sherlock, J Epping-Jordan, G Peters, WR Mahanani, J Amuthavalli Thiyagarajan, S Chatterji. The World Report on Ageing and Health: a policy framework for healthy ageing. The Lancet 2016; 387 (10033): 2145-2154. PubMed PMID: 26520231; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4848186

7. John R. Beard, David E. Bloom. Towards a Comprehensive Public Health Response to Population Ageing. Lancet. 2015 February 14; 385(9968): 658–661. PubMed PMID: 25468151; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4663973.

List of Published Work in MyBibliography:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/john.beard.4/bibliography/public/

Global Health Activities

For 10 years until 2019, Dr Beard was Director of Ageing and Life Course with the World Health Organization in Geneva where he led a number of major global initiatives. He was lead editor and writer for the World report on ageing and health which provides the foundation for the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing which runs from 2020-2030. In 2012, he established the WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities which now includes over 1500 member municipalities responsible for more than 300 million people. Other projects developed by his team included the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) programme, a global campaign to combat ageism and reframe the way we think about ageing and older age, and work with research partners to identify and fill the many knowledge gaps in the field of ageing.

Dr Beard has worked extensively with the World Economic Forum, including as chair of their Global Agenda Council on Population Ageing and as facilitator for several events at their annual meeting in Davos. He has also served as Master of Ceremonies for High-level Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) events in St Petersburg and San Francisco.

Dr Beard continues to work internationally in diverse roles including as

  • Chair of the International Advisory Panel for the Health District @ Queenstown Project, Singapore.
  • Senior International Ageing Policy Technical Advisor, United Nations Development Program, Cambodia.
  • Member of IHU Scientific Advisory Board, Toulouse University, France.
  • Member, Scientific Advisory Board, The American Hospital of Paris.
  • Chair, Advisory Council, Global Coalition on Ageing, New York; and as
  • Member of Steering Committee for the Longevity Economy Initiative of the World Economic Forum.