Happiness is gaining currency today, particularly in relationship to health and medicine. That’s what we’ve been hearing ever since Harvard School of Public Health researchers Julia K. Boehm and Laura Kubzansky published their report “The Heart’s Content: The Association Between Positive Psychological Well-Being and Cardiovascular Health” in the Psychological Bulletin, under a grant from Pioneer. This is the first study of its kind to look closely at how positive psychological well-being—including happiness and optimism—plays a role in heart health.

The story was indeed hot – gaining attention from USA Today, The Huffington Post, TIME’s Healthland blog, WebMD, The New York Times’ Well Blog, ABCNews.com, MensHealth.com, ModernHealthcare.com, Oprah.com, and hundreds more – and being shared throughout social networks and on the web.

Today, the Psychological Bulletin published research by Julia K. Boehm and Laura Kubzansky from the Harvard School of Public Health suggesting that positive psychological well-being – such as life purpose, positive emotion, life satisfaction, happiness and optimism – can help protect against and slow the progression of heart disease.

Prior research in this area has focused on how risk factors like anxiety and depression are associated with cardiovascular disease. But this study is the first of its kind to consider how a health asset –psychological well-being – plays a role in heart health.

Today at the World Health Care Congress, Pioneer's Team Director Brian Quinn announced the winners of the Innovations for Health: Solutions that Cross Borders competition, supported by Pioneer and Ashoka Changemakers.  Innovations for Health looked to the international health community for forward-facing, transformative ideas with the potential to change health and medicine here in the United States.

We wanted to find cutting-edge solutions from anywhere in the world that have the potential to be applied in other countries to improve health and health care. While the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is devoted to improving the health and health care of Americans, this competition arises from what we call our “Flat World” work. That is the name we’ve given to our efforts that look around the world for innovations that could be used to solve the health and health care challenges we’re facing here in the United States.

Last month’s 12gurus: Health conference brought “resources and innovation to the forefront” by convening the world’s most accomplished leaders in health care and medicine to share new ideas that can improve the health care system. The conference focused on how to enable innovation through research, data-sharing, and mobile technology to pave the way for future breakthroughs in health care.

Three former and current Pioneer grantees attended the invitation-only conference in New York City and gave 18-minute-or-less “TED.com-style” talks:

• Scott Johnson, president and founder of the Myelin Repair Foundation, presented the session, “Breaking from the Past to Breakthrough to Cures-Accelerated Collaboration Model.” Learn more about Scott’s recent honor as the recipient of the prestigious Gordon and Llura Gund Leadership Award from Research!America.

• Jason Hwang, executive director of health care at Innosight Institute, presented the session, “Preparing for Impending Disruptive Changes: The Innovators Prescription.”  Read more about Jason’s Pioneer-funded research, "Disruptive Innovation in Integrated Care Delivery Systems."

• Lisa Schwartz and Steve Woloshin, of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, presented the session, “Ingredients of Simplicity: How to present data to patients in a way they’ll understand.” Learn more about their work creating Drug Facts Boxes and read Al Shar’s perspective on their research.  

At the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), our mission is to improve the health and health care of all Americans. Good health and health care are fundamental measures of our success as a nation. That’s why we are pleased to support this year’s TEDMED conference (April 10-13), which brings together leaders from a wide array of medical and non-medical disciplines to explore the future of health and medicine.

In our 40 years, RWJF has learned several lessons that led us to support this year’s TEDMED conference. We’ve learned the importance of working with partners and building on the efforts of others; facilitating collaboration among unlikely allies; resisting the illusion of complete understanding; and being persistent.