International Brain Health Coalition Launches to Put Proven Strategies Into Action

Global leaders in medicine, life sciences, technology, finance, and the United Nations unite to move brain health evidence into homes, communities, and health systems: transforming evidence into equity.

New multisector coalition, coordinated by the Atria Research and Global Health Institute (ARGHI), launches the 30×30×50 Brain Challenge to cut stroke incidence and expand cognitive screening in 30 cities by 2031

NEW YORK, Oct. 5, 2026 /CNW/ -- The International Brain Health Coalition (IBC) launched today, bringing together a multisector, multidisciplinary global community to turn brain health science into equitable, real-world delivery. Its first commitment is the 30×30×50 Brain Challenge: by 2031, 30 cities will work to reduce stroke by 30 percent and increase cognitive screening in primary care by 50 percent.

Coordinated by the Atria Research and Global Health Institute (ARGHI), the Coalition unites patients, leaders from across sectors, and multilateral institutions, including the United Nations, behind a single mandate: to develop, validate, and scale implementation models for the early detection, intervention, and prevention of cognitive impairment, dementia, and stroke across primary care and community settings globally. Rather than generating new evidence alone, the Coalition focuses on putting what science already knows into programs, policies, and daily habits that reach people where they live, work, and age, not only where they receive care.

Neurological and cardiometabolic conditions are among the leading causes of ill health and disability worldwide, and their economic toll on families, and health systems is immense and unsustainable. The modifiable risk factors behind stroke and dementia are well established. The science for prevention is clear, what has been missing is the infrastructure to act on it.

"We are currently facing an incalculable toll on human suffering and an enormous drain on the global economy," said Dr. David Dodick, Chair of the IBC, Chief Science and Medical Officer at the Atria Health Institute, and Co-Director of the Atria Academy of Science and Medicine. "We have the science to prevent this reality. We don't have a knowledge gap; we have an execution failure, and IBC was built to close it."

Today, IBC collaborators include UN Women; Thrive Global; Western University; the Western Institute for Neuroscience; the AI-Mind Institute (Norway); Eli Lilly and Company; Bristol Myers Squibb; the Royal Bank of Canada; the American Heart Association; the Women's Alzheimer's Movement; Microsoft; NeuroCentury; Dr. Regina Benjamin, the 18th United States Surgeon General; Gen. Peter Chiarelli, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army and former CEO of One Mind; Dr. Abdulkareem Al Olama, Founder of Sultan Al Olama Medical Centers (Dubai); and more.

"Extraordinary progress is happening across brain health, neurological sciences, and policy," said Khadija Rejto, Vice Chair of IBC and Chair of Global Health at the Atria Research and Global Health Institute. "Cardiovascular, metabolic, and endocrine research is reshaping how we understand the brain. IBC's role is to connect those efforts and bring brain health into the places where life actually happens, turning shared knowledge into better brain health for all."

The IBC's inaugural project is the 30×30×50 Brain Challenge: 30 global cities pledging a 30% reduction in stroke incidence and a 50% increase in primary-care cognitive screening by 2031, establishing a validated, replicable model that any city, health system, or country can adopt. IBC's two launch cities are London, Ontario, Canada, and Oslo, Norway.

London, Ontario, Canada is home to the Coalition's flagship CanDo Brain Health Implementation Initiative, a two-year trial enrolling up to 800 participants in a scalable AI-and-human coaching model targeting blood pressure, activity, sleep, and other proven drivers of cognitive decline, anchored by the Western Institute for Neuroscience at Western University.

"Brain health is the foundation of individual and societal well-being, and we have known for decades how to protect it. What we have lacked is a way to deliver that knowledge to entire populations," said Dr. Vladimir Hachinski of the Western Institute for Neuroscience, Western University. "The International Brain Health Coalition is the first initiative built to do precisely that. It is fitting that this work begins in London, where integral brain health was first defined as a discipline, and it is my hope that what we prove here will benefit every community in the world."

Oslo, Norway, anchors the Coalition's European launch through the AI-Mind research environment at Oslo University Hospital and the University of Oslo, led by Dr. Ira Haraldsen, PhD, MD, together with BrainSymph, combining multimodal AI, cognitive assessment, EEG, blood-based biomarkers, and longitudinal home monitoring to identify individuals at increased risk of cognitive decline before overt dementia develops.

"The Oslo demonstration will extend this foundation into a practical, scalable model for precision brain health prevention and early intervention, linking population and primary care screening with multimodal risk stratification and personalized follow up, while emerging Virtual Human Twin approaches investigate how brain, cardiovascular, metabolic, inflammatory, and behavioural factors interact over time to reveal modifiable risk trajectories before irreversible neurological disease develops," said Dr. Ira Haraldsen.

This pairing of Europe's most advanced predictive brain health science with a proven translational pathway makes Oslo a powerful demonstration environment for the IBC and creates a direct bridge to major European research, innovation, regulatory, and commercialization programs.

Quotations from IBC collaborators:

• Dr. Regina Benjamin M.D., 18th United States Surgeon General: "Access to scientific evidence and treatment should not depend on where a person lives or what resources a community has. The International Brain Health Coalition is building a population health model designed for everyone, turning what we know about prevention into care that can reach every community."
• Ambassador Sima Bahous, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women: "Dementia and Alzheimer's disease are not gender-neutral. Women represent nearly two thirds of those living with Alzheimer's and the overwhelming majority of those who care for them, often at the cost of their own health, income, and opportunity. That is why this effort must be viewed through a women's health lens from the very beginning, not as an afterthought. The International Brain Health Coalition has embedded women's brain health into its foundation, and UN Women is proud to contribute to the work of a coalition determined to ensure that the benefits of prevention reach the women who bear the greatest burden of this disease."
• Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global: "The science is clear that the daily behaviors protecting our brains, from sleep and movement to nutrition and connection, are built through small, sustained steps, not willpower alone. With Thrive Global we have built a digital platform grounded in the science of behavior change that can deliver personalized nudges and Microsteps to millions of people at the moments they matter most. That reach is what makes a project of this ambition feasible. For the first time, we can meet people where they are, at population scale, and help them turn what science knows about brain health into what they actually do every day."
• Jennifer Oleksiw, Group Vice President, U.S. Neuroscience & Global Commercial Innovation Officer, Eli Lilly and Company: "Alzheimer's disease brain changes can begin up to 20 years before symptoms appear. Acting early can help preserve brain health, but our health care systems aren't set up for early intervention and detection. The International Brain Health Coalition is a way to bring risk factor education into routine primary care and assess how blood-based biomarkers could support it."
• Wendy Short Bartie, Executive Vice President, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Bristol Myers Squibb: "Brain health is one of the defining health challenges of our time, and no single organization can address it alone. We have an opportunity to bring together science, health care, technology, policy, and community partners around a shared goal: helping people maintain healthier brains throughout their lives. What makes the International Brain Health Coalition so important is its focus on turning knowledge into action and building practical models that can expand access, improve outcomes, and reach more people in the communities where they live."
• Maria Shriver, Founder of the Women's Alzheimer's Movement at Cleveland Clinic: "I have spent more than two decades sounding the alarm that Alzheimer's disease is an urgent women's health issue, long before brain health entered the public's consciousness. I founded the Women's Alzheimer's Movement and launched the first clinic in this country devoted to preventing Alzheimer's in women at Cleveland Clinic because I believed prevention was possible when almost no one else did. What the International Brain Health Coalition is doing is what I have been fighting for all along: taking prevention out of the margins and building it into everyday care. This is an enormous accomplishment and move forward, and women, who carry the greatest burden of this disease, stand to gain the most."
• Dr. Mitchell Elkind, Chief Science Officer for Brain Health and Stroke at the American Heart Association (AHA): "The goals of the IBC initiative align well with those of the American Heart Association. We recognize that the heart, cardiovascular system and brain are interconnected in multiple ways, which is the scientific basis for our new heart-brain initiative. We also believe that the best way to support long-term brain health in populations is to foster healthy behaviors, using public-facing tools like our own Life's Essential 8, and proven clinical interventions, while measuring their impact in registries like the Get With the Guidelines quality improvement initiative."
• Elena Bonfiglioli, Global Business Leader for Healthcare, Pharma and Life Sciences at Microsoft: "The convergence of AI, data and advances in science is creating breakthrough new opportunities across both brain health and women's health. By connecting technology with clinical expertise and strong ecosystems, we see an opportunity to rethink how to approach prevention, advance earlier insights, enable access to more targeted diagnostics, more personalized care and enable better health outcomes. I am confident that the International Brain Health Coalition will help explore what is possible and accelerate meaningful progress for people and communities."

About the International Brain Health Coalition

The International Brain Health Coalition (IBC) is a multisector, implementation-focused global coalition dedicated to transforming brain health science into equitable, real world delivery. Its mission is to transform evidence into equity, closing the gap between what science knows and what communities receive. The IBC designs, tests, validates, and scales models for the early detection, early intervention, and prevention of stroke and dementia in primary care and community settings worldwide, merging neurology, cardiology, metabolic health, and behavioral science into a single implementation engine, with equity, women's health, and data sovereignty embedded as foundational design requirements rather than add ons. A Swiss charitable association based in Geneva, the IBC is hosted and coordinated by the Atria Research and Global Health Institute and launches with demonstration cities in London, Ontario, and Oslo, Norway.

About the Atria Research and Global Health Institute

The Atria Research and Global Health Institute is a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to identify, validate, and scale preventive models of care that improve health outcomes and extend healthy lives for as many people as possible, with a focus on brain, cardiovascular, cancer, and metabolic health. Acting as a translational layer between discovery and delivery, ARGHI conducts original research, generates proof of concept data for emerging aging biomarkers and interventions, and moves the approaches that hold up into real world practice through partnerships with public health organizations working directly in communities. ARGHI shares educational content with the public and the medical community free of charge, and coordinates the International Brain Health Coalition.

Media Contact: Jon Pace, [email protected]

SOURCE International Brain Health Coalition