Across the world, populations are aging rapidly as people live longer and fertility rates continue to decline. Asia is at the vanguard of this demographic shift. The number of older adults (aged 60 and above) in the region is projected to triple between 2010 and 2050, reaching nearly 1.3 billion people. As Asian economies face this “silver wave,” helping older adults live safely and independently at home – a concept known as aging in place – has become a policy imperative.

At a recent webinar held during Stanford Health AI Week, the Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) at Shorenstein APARC brought together experts from China, Singapore, and South Korea to share insights into the potential of health AI to allow older adults to enjoy healthy aging and avoid or postpone institutionalization. 

Moderated by Stanford health economist Karen Eggleston, the director of AHPP, the webinar featured Hongsoo Kim, a professor of health policy and aging at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Public Health and director of its Artificial Intelligence Institute’s Center for AI in Health and Care; Xiaochen Ma, an assistant professor of health economics at Peking University’s China Center for Health Development Studies; and Tien Yin Wong, a physician-scientist-innovator and the senior vice-chancellor of Tsinghua Medicine and vice-provost of Tsinghua University, who has also worked and held senior leadership roles in Singapore and Australia as a practicing retinal specialist with a research portfolio on retinal diseases, ocular imaging, AI, and digital technology.

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Here are six lessons from the front lines of Asia’s efforts to integrate AI into elderly health care and advance aging in place:

1. Adopt a Whole Systems Approach

In South Korea, the world's fastest-ageing society, automated systems like "CLOVA CareCall" – an AI-powered well-being dialer – conduct natural-sounding check-ins with solo-dwelling seniors, boasting a 96% response rate. Yet, Professor Kim emphasizes that checking in with people in need of health care is only half the battle.

If an AI flags an isolated senior at risk of depression, cognitive decline, or a physical abnormality, but the local community lacks the social workers or clinical pathways to intervene, then the health care system has failed.

“The question is not only whether AI can detect something, but how a health and care system acts on it,” she says. “Detection by itself changes nothing. A warning that no one follows up on helps no one. So the gap I care about is not the model’s cleverness itself. It is whether the system delivers.”

2. Solve the Entire "Care Cascade"

In rural China, traditional diabetic screening rates hover below 33%, leaving millions at risk of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), a leading cause of blindness. Professor Ma shared how deploying an AI screening model successfully pushed screening rates past 85%.

The research team, however, discovered a glaring bottleneck: only 21% of high-risk patients actually followed up to receive sight-saving treatments. To fill in this gap, Ma’s team designed an "AI Plus” model (v2.0) that integrates immediate, local-language counseling at the point of screening. To keep seniors healthy at home, AI solutions must address the entire clinical journey, from initial scan to final treatment.

“Many of the AI tools have been focused on diagnosis accuracy or validation rather than going downstream to the entire cascade of whether improved screening will transfer into improved referral and the ultimate health outcomes,” says Ma.

3. Align with Local Workflows and Incentives

AI and other technology solutions for health often fail because they expect overworked care workers to adopt entirely new habits. Professor Ma noted that digital health interventions in rural China succeeded only when they integrated seamlessly into existing daily routines.

Instead of forcing clinicians to use complex new software, successful pilots utilized WeChat, the ubiquitous messaging app already open on every phone. Furthermore, the technology must align with the financial and professional incentives of frontline health workers. If an AI tool increases their administrative burden without simplifying their day or boosting their clinical efficiency, then it will remain unused.

4. Design Human-Centered AI for Health Equity

Professor Wong highlighted the ethical risk that AI tools will worsen, rather than reduce, health care disparities. This challenge is driven by the dynamics of “Inverse Care Law,” where AI disproportionately benefits the already advantaged, and the “Recursive Care Law,” where this inequality becomes a self-reinforcing cycle embedded in the system.

Because younger, more tech-savvy individuals generate more health data, AI models become better at serving them than the intended users of aging-in-place technologies. This creates a vicious cycle where the very tools designed to support aging populations end up marginalizing them. Governments must devise policies to mandate fair data coverage and usability, ensuring that AI serves society's most vulnerable members equitably, Wong stated.

Professor Kim noted that her team found that only about 38% of community care agencies in Korea have adopted AI and that the adoption rate varied sharply by region. In fact, districts with the greatest need may have the least access to these powerful tools. This challenge is not a technology gap, Professor Kim argues, but a fundamental design gap. To be genuinely equitable, a system must be built from the start to actively track who is missing and automatically route support back to them. This requires two  human-centered design key principles:

I. Universal by Default: The hardest-to-reach should not have to be the most persistent in navigating the technology.

II. Connected Across Sectors: Long-term care, social care, and health care must act as one integrated system rather than disconnected silos, each of which sees only part of the person’s needs.

5. Augment, Do Not Replace, the Human Touch

The panelists rejected the trope of robots replacing human caregivers. Instead, they view AI as an essential force multiplier for an overstretched workforce.

Whether it is South Korea’s deployment of 12,000 AI companion robots to combat senior isolation, or automated triage tools in clinics, the goal should be to offload administrative and routine tasks. This frees up human social workers and clinicians to do what they do best: deliver hands-on, empathetic care.

6. Value Real-World Outcomes Over Technical Novelty

Healthcare systems should prioritize rigorous, real-world case studies that prove actual clinical value, such as reduced mortality, lower rates of blindness, or fewer nursing home admissions, rather than celebrating high validation benchmarks in a laboratory.

To build robust future health AI systems, the experts concluded, the academic and tech sectors must also courageously publish and analyze their failed trials to understand what truly works in the chaotic reality of home-based care.

While AI holds immense promise for helping people grow old at home, “age tech” alone cannot solve the elder care crisis, the panelists agreed.

Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is delighted to announce today, ahead of World Press Freedom Day, that Singapore-based investigative journalist Shibani Mahtani is the recipient of the 2026 Shorenstein Journalism Award for excellence in coverage of the Asia-Pacific region. The award recognizes Mahtani for her original, powerful reporting that has brought critical attention to the erosion of democracy and human rights across the region, particularly in Southeast Asia. She will receive the award at a public ceremony in the coming autumn quarter.

Until February 2026, Mahtani was an international investigative correspondent for the Washington Post. Her accountability-driven investigations across the Asia-Pacific have focused on the expanding economic and political influence of an increasingly assertive China and its implications in the region. Her work includes, among others, reports linking powerful criminal networks in Myanmar to the Chinese state and exposing brutal scam compounds in the country; examining Beijing’s influence on Chinese-language media in Singapore and its efforts to wield influence in Indonesia and elsewhere through vocational programs; scrutinizing China’s cross-national repression of Uyghur Muslims, especially in Central and Southeast Asia; and investigating how its promise of prosperity brought Laos debt and distress.

Mahtani joined the Washington Post in 2018 as the Southeast Asia and Hong Kong Bureau Chief. She reported extensively from Myanmar, the Philippines, Laos, and other parts of the region. Most notably, she chronicled China’s subjugation of Hong Kong, from the explosive protests in 2019, triggered by Beijing’s proposal to extradite locals to the mainland, through the systematic crushing of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, to the dismantling of the city’s autonomy and the many ways it is changing.

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Her searing coverage of Hong Kong’s struggle includes a multimedia investigative report into Hong Kong police misconduct during the 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations, for which she earned a Human Rights Press Award, and an exclusive on the alleged torture of a key prosecution witness in Hong Kong’s highest-profile trial of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Mahtani continued to pursue that story, most recently reporting on Lai’s 20-year prison sentence, even after losing her job when the Washington Post sharply reduced its International team as part of mass layoffs.

Mahtani is also the co-author of the 2023 book, Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy, a narrative history of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement that explores it through the eyes of people on the ground, culminating in the 2019 mass protests and Beijing’s crackdown. 

Before joining the Washington Post, she was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and reported from Singapore, Myanmar, and Chicago.

“Shibani Mahtani’s journalism is defined by a courageous and relentless pursuit of speaking truth to power,” said APARC Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui. “Her work exemplifies the vital role of investigative reporting: to expose complex systems of repression and give voice to those who have been silenced. We are proud to honor her outstanding journalism with the Shorenstein Award.”

Sponsored and presented annually by APARC, the Shorenstein Award recognizes journalists and news media outlets that leverage a deep knowledge of Asian societies to share crucial insights with a global audience. The award carries a $10,000 cash prize and honors the legacy of APARC’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. It also demonstrates APARC’s commitment to journalism that persistently and courageously seeks accuracy, deep reporting, and nuanced coverage in an age when attacks are regularly launched against independent news media, fact-based truth, and those who tell it.

The selection committee for the award praised Mahtani’s investigations as groundbreaking and revelatory, noting that, in her coverage of Hong Kong, she has broken stories others would not – or could not – report.

The committee members are William Dobson, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy; Anna Fifield, a journalist and foreign affairs analyst, non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and recipient of the 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award; James Hamilton, vice provost for undergraduate education, the Hearst Professor of Communication, and director of the Stanford Journalism Program, Stanford University; Louisa Lim, associate professor, Audio-Visual Journalism Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne; and Raju Narisetti, partner and global leader at McKinsey Global Publishing, McKinsey & Company.

Twenty-four winners previously received the Shorenstein Award. Recent honorees include Chris Buckley, the chief China correspondent for the New York Times; Emily Feng, international correspondent for NPR covering China, Taiwan, and more; Netra News, Bangladesh's premier independent media outlet; The Caravan, India's premier magazine of long-form journalism; and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, co-founder and CEO of the Philippines-based news organization Rappler.

Information about the 2026 Shorenstein Journalism Award ceremony celebrating Mahtahni will be forthcoming in the autumn quarter.

How do multiracial societies like Singapore foster social integration? How successful are these efforts, and how do they affect the lived experiences of minority groups, especially in contexts governed by racial quotas? In what ways does enforced racial integration shape racial formations and race relations?

These are some of the questions guiding APARC Predoctoral Fellow Alisha Cherian’s academic journey, which is rooted in a deep curiosity about how race operates in everyday urban life, particularly within Southeast Asia.

Cherian, a Stanford Ph.D. candidate in social and cultural anthropology, delves into the ways in which Indian Singaporeans navigate their identities and racial positioning in a public urban setting in a society where race is both a deeply ingrained social reality and an official category enforced by the state. Her research reflects a nuanced approach to race relations in a region that has long been at the crossroads of colonial legacies, multiculturalism, and state-led racial governance.

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By focusing on the experiences of Indian Singaporeans, Cherian challenges traditional top-down narratives of racial governance that have dominated scholarship on Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. These countries, often studied together due to their shared historical, cultural, and political contexts, have long been the subject of analyses from disciplines such as history, political science, urban studies, and geography. Yet, as Cherian points out, much of this work has focused on macro-level structures such as policies and state narratives, leaving gaps in understanding how these policies manifest in the daily lives of individuals.

"I’m interested in exploring how people live their lives within these larger structural conditions," she explains. "I’m trying to get a deeper understanding of the grounded, empirical lived reality of the Singapore state’s explicit race craft."

The Struggles and Nuances of Studying Race in Singapore

Race relations in Singapore — central to the nation’s political and historical development — remain a subject fraught with tension. As Cherian describes, although race is an official category in Singapore, the discussion of racism is a highly sensitive one. Conversations around racial discrimination are often met with skepticism or outright denial, particularly by the Singapore government and the racial majority, which in the context of the state’s policies is predominantly Chinese.

This skepticism extends even into academic circles, where Cherian has encountered resistance from scholars unfamiliar with the region who question whether her work might be too heavily influenced by American ideas of race relations, especially in light of global conversations around privilege.

Indeed, the notion of "Chinese privilege," a term that Cherian uses in her research, has roots in the American concept of "white privilege," yet it takes on distinct meanings within the Singaporean context. "Chinese privilege" refers to the systemic advantages that ethnic Chinese enjoy in Singapore, something that Cherian’s research subjects, primarily Indian Singaporeans, use to explain their marginalized position within the city-state. For Cherian, these local terminologies and frameworks are essential to understanding the racial dynamics at play. "I make sure to study Singapore race relations on their own terms," she says, "which is at the heart of anthropological inquiry itself."

Navigating the sensitive nature of her subject matter, Cherian is aware that critiques of the state’s racial policies can be met with censorship, or worse, backlash. Yet, she sees these challenges as integral to capturing the complex dynamics of racial identity in a globalized world. "Race is not a monolith," she asserts. "It’s a lived reality, and that’s where the story lies."

Scholarship Shaped by Interdisciplinary Conversations

Cherian’s time as a predoctoral scholar has been pivotal in shaping her approach to research and its potential for broader societal impact. While her research at APARC has allowed her to refine her dissertation, titled "Discordant Harmonies: Everyday Life in the Racial City-State," the experience has also provided her with a unique opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary conversations with scholars and practitioners from across Asia and the world.

"It’s been inspiring to see how postdoctoral scholars and faculty at APARC have mobilized their findings in ways that have a broader impact," Cherian reflects. "It’s made me think about how I can channel my own work into productive change. Whether it’s through policy conferences or meetings with world leaders, the way scholars here have connected their research to real-world challenges has been really inspiring."

The collegial and intellectually stimulating environment at APARC has helped her envision new possibilities for her academic career. Cherian describes the APARC community as one that is both rigorous and warm. “I’ve had some great conversations with my deskmates and at lunch events,” she says. “I’ve received reading recommendations and heard fascinating stories about the varied professional trajectories of the people around me. It’s helped me imagine even more futures for myself.”

Looking Ahead: Turning Research into Action

With her dissertation nearing completion, Cherian plans to adapt her work into a book that will bring the complex, often discordant dynamics of race relations in Singapore to a broader audience. Through this book, she hopes to offer a new perspective on how race operates within the everyday lives of Singaporeans, ultimately providing a more grounded understanding of racial governance in the city-state.

To aspiring scholars in race and ethnicity studies, Cherian offers this advice: "Center your research subjects," she says, emphasizing the importance of grounding scholarly work in the lived experiences of people. "Take seriously how they understand their world, and don’t be afraid to confront the gaps in the existing literature."

Driven by a commitment to rigorous scholarship and its social impact, Cherian’s work challenges us to reconsider how race is not just a structural concept, but a lived experience that shapes the very fabric of urban life in Singapore and beyond.