New polling from the Market Institute and President Donald Trump’s pollster Fabrizio Ward finds that an overwhelming 87% of voters believe fighting Alzheimer’s should be a priority. Nearly 4 in 5 say they are more likely to support candidates who prioritize better access to Alzheimer’s detection, diagnosis, and treatment.
The good news is these results coincide with rapid American innovation in Alzheimer’s research and treatment. New research suggests as many as 45% of dementia cases may be linked to potentially modifiable risk factors, meaning earlier action can change outcomes. American companies have developed blood-based biomarker tests capable of detecting markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease through a simple blood draw and treatments designed to slow disease progression.
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These advances work best when implemented early, making prompt diagnosis more important than ever. Yet many Americans still view Alzheimer’s as an inevitable part of aging rather than a disease where earlier detection can preserve independence and quality of life. Tragically, that’s probably because the government has not sought to make it a major public-facing priority.
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Alzheimer’s is also an economic and human crisis. More than 7 million Americans live with it, and that number is projected to nearly double by 2060. The disease already costs America hundreds of billions annually through welfare, long-term care, lost productivity, and unpaid caregiving.
Caregivers reduce work hours, leave jobs, or postpone retirement. Families exhaust savings built over decades and bear the emotional burden of watching loved ones gradually lose themselves.
Other countries, including adversaries like China, understand the urgency. Beijing already announced a national strategy to address dementia. Fifteen Chinese government departments contributed to a proposal outlining seven major initiatives, including expanding care services for older adults and increasing the number of trained dementia-care professionals to 15 million by 2030.
America does not need to solve problems like the Chinese. But advances in treatment have created an opportunity to identify patients earlier and help them maintain independence.
To achieve that, the United States should expand access to blood-based diagnostic testing, empower primary-care physicians to identify cognitive decline earlier, and ensure patients who qualify for Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments can access them without unnecessary delays.
The economic value of additional healthy years would be enormous. New research shows treating patients before symptoms emerge could add approximately one year of life, reduce nursing-home stays by nearly two years, and lower medical spending by about $48,000 per patient. One economist estimated that increasing healthy life expectancy by just one year is worth roughly $566,000 per person.
Those gains would extend far beyond individual families. Today, Alzheimer’s caregiving responsibilities cost American households an estimated $8 billion annually, while families shoulder roughly 70% of the lifetime costs. Helping Americans stay healthier and independent longer would preserve workforce participation, protect retirement savings, and strengthen economic growth.
None of this is to mention the emotional cost, both of watching loved ones succumb to this illness and of the fears of growing older and increasingly worrying that it might affect you.
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Countries that lead on this issue will strengthen families, preserve workforce participation, reduce long-term costs, and gain a competitive advantage in an aging world. They will recognize that when millions of citizens leave the workforce to provide care and drain their savings, productivity falls and economic security weakens. And that by waiting until Alzheimer’s reaches advanced stages, costs explode.
China’s leaders understand Alzheimer’s and dementia as threats to economic growth, workforce participation, and national competitiveness. But America leads the world in creating next-generation Alzheimer’s breakthroughs. It should lead the world in deploying them.
Aiden Buzzetti is the president of the Bull Moose Project, an organization advocating populist conservatism in Washington, D.C.
