The global chronic disease problem is largely an urban issue. The underlying factors are well-known. Lifestyle changes from active, traditional, rural patterns to those of the city, largely industrialized, often leading to poor health habits. These are particular issues in the seventy of the hundred largest one hundred largest world metropolitan areas that are in the developing world.

The point of the 2020 Program is that such people can be offered better choices. The point isn't in what people need to give up in order to be healthy, it is in what they have never heard of, that will make them healthier and happier. There is a mythical American country music song, "I would rather be miserable with you than happy with somebody else". Ha, pretty funny. That is the logic that underlies the defeatist attitude that prevails with regard to the chronic health of the people. Our proposition is that with better data, more sound, credible interpretation, and better, more informed lifestyle choices, people with vote for better health, less pain, and higher levels of performance and satisfaction. Possibly a risky proposition, but we think not, not with sufficient support and momentum from both public and private partners.

The prevailing medical model extended beyond desperation a few decades ago. Rather than progressively, desperately eating away at our economic and biological incomes and reserves, lets turn the tide on the health of the people. The message of knowledge-driven universal coverage is that we can.