G7 Brain Economy Summit
"Brain Health Measurement: Where We Were, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going"
Invited TED-style talk delivered as part of the G7 Brain Economy Summit programming in June 2025. Krystal traced the trajectory of brain health measurement from early occupational health metrics through psychosocial-risk surveying to the predictive analytics that now sit underneath employer brain-health strategy.
She opened by anchoring the field in two recent HERO Health and Wellbeing Best Practices Scorecard winners, including the Franklin Cooperative in Tennessee, which was the first time she had seen brain health, sleep, nutrition, and mental health endpoints surface in the award itself. Shell received the same recognition the following year for being the first employer to publish predictive analyses across 14 mental, physical, social, and organizational constructs. Of those 14, four turned out to predict adverse outcomes such as burnout: an individual's resilience, the demands placed on them at work and whether they have time to meet those demands, the quality of relationships at work, and the individual's own sense of hope for the future.
Krystal then walked through the brain health framework released in 2023 by a collaboration of the Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative, McKinsey Health Institute, and the Business Collaborative for Brain Health (UsAgainstAlzheimer's). The model lays risk factors on the left, brain health defined across mental, neurological, and workplace performance in the middle, and outcomes on the right. The Brain Health Matrix, released in Houston in May 2025, is the first attempt to operationalize and measure those left-hand levers in employer settings.
She closed personally. "A lot of people talk about their personal connection to doing this. I have a personal connection. I'm the daughter of a drug-addicted mother who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. This work is very deeply personal and meaningful to me. But I work for an organization in a sector that is scared to share, and is scared to talk about something as risky. We will not get anywhere if we continue to have that belief as an organization."
Audience: G7 delegates, brain health researchers, neurology and neuroscience clinical leaders, and members of the Global Brain Economy Initiative network. Recording: https://youtu.be/lZB-32utZuA