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0LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The oldest millennials turn 45 this year - people like me - and the oldest Gen Xers are 60. How prepared are they to thrive in the decades ahead? NPR's Allison Aubrey reports on a new tool to help.
ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: If you're planning for the future, you've likely been advised to track your retirement savings. But Joe Coughlin, the founder of the MIT AgeLab, says there's more to the equation when it comes to navigating a long life. At a time when the number of centenarians is expected to quadruple, he and his collaborators have developed a comprehensive way to plan for aging. It's called the Longevity Preparedness Index.
JOE COUGHLIN: Unlike one more, shall we say, survey or index out there about how much money you saved, we want to look at all those big and little things that we take for granted in life. Where are you going to live? What community did you pick? How do you provide care? How will you receive care? Essentially, your social connection.
AUBREY: The Longevity Preparedness Index quiz is free online. It takes about 15 minutes to complete. You're asked a series of questions, and a score is determined by your answers across eight domains, including relationships with family, friends, community, your health, your daily activities. MIT AgeLab researcher Katie Warren is about to walk Matthew Hudak through the survey. She opens the quiz on her computer.
KATIE WARREN: So we'll go ahead and get started.
AUBREY: Hudak is a financial planner in Orange County, California. He's in his early 60s. He clicks through questions about his neighborhood.
MATTHEW HUDAK: My neighborhood has good sidewalks and places for walking. Agree. My neighborhood has many places for social gatherings and activities that I would enjoy. Agree. My neighborhood offers me easy access to a pharmacy. Agree.
AUBREY: Hudak is healthy and fit, so it's hard to imagine a day he couldn't drive to pick up a prescription or would need help getting places. Many people just don't anticipate changes that come with aging, so the survey includes uncomfortable questions.
HUDAK: So it says that, Matthew, in the event you were to need a care provider, do you know who that care provider would be?
AUBREY: This question can spark conversation and serve as a reality check of what the future could hold.
HUDAK: Watching my 88-year-old dad and my 93-year-old father-in-law - you know, it gives you pause for thought.
AUBREY: He says it's better to have your eyes wide open than dig your head in the sand.
HUDAK: I'm ready to calculate. Eighty-nine. That's a good score.
AUBREY: The average score is 60 out of 100. The index was developed in tandem with John Hancock, a life insurance company that has introduced a new longevity initiative aimed at helping customers live longer, healthier lives. CEO Brooks Tingle says taking the quiz made him realize his own thinking needed to shift.
BROOKS TINGLE: People make decisions about where they're going to move in quote-unquote retirement that, for me, might have been driven by - how good's the fishing? - or something. Well, should I be thinking about the quality of healthcare? And then, am I going to have friends down there? So I think just the general lack of preparedness...
AUBREY: Yeah.
TINGLE: ...Struck me.
AUBREY: Answering all these questions about life transitions, community, care and home life can help reveal both challenges and opportunities of the decades ahead. Laura Carstensen directs the Stanford Center on Longevity.
LAURA CARSTENSEN: We really need to think about how we build societies where the majority of people can arrive at very old age, happy, engaged and satisfied with their lives.
AUBREY: Aging brings unpredictability, of course. But planning for the foreseeable future can help people adapt and hopefully thrive for decades to come.
Allison Aubrey, NPR News.
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