Inaugural trial — now recruiting founding partners

Health Horizon Conversation Tool

A new language for longevity in the clinic.

An interactive clinical aid that shows patients — visually, immediately, and personally — how many years they could gain by changing course. Built for the consultation room. Grounded in evidence. Designed around opportunity, not just risk.

Try the tool → Join the inaugural trial → Learn more
At age 55 — example conversation
68
Life expectancy
without change
78
Life expectancy
with improvements
+10 years
of life potentially gained through moderate lifestyle improvements — more time for what matters most
Health horizon spectrum
Peak50–60
Strong60–70
Stable70–75
At risk75–80
Frailty80–85
Severe85+
About the tool

A shared visual
language for longevity

Standard clinical risk communication tells patients what is wrong. The Health Horizon Conversation Tool shows them what is possible. Used collaboratively during consultations, it translates population-level epidemiological data into a patient's own numbers — live, in real time, in front of them.

"The goal is not to alarm patients about risk. It is to help them see — clearly and personally — what their horizon looks like, and how far it can move."

The tool is intentionally balanced. Ten risk factors and ten protective factors are presented with equal visual weight, consistent with motivational interviewing principles. At the end of every consultation, a personalised take-home summary is generated — printed or exported as PDF — so the patient leaves with something tangible.

10 risk factors
Smoking / tobacco−5 yrs
Physical inactivity−3 yrs
Obesity (BMI >30)−3 yrs
Heavy alcohol use−3 yrs
Type 2 diabetes−3 yrs
Hypertension−2 yrs
High LDL cholesterol−2 yrs
Poor sleep (<6 hrs)−2 yrs
Chronic high stress−2 yrs
Social isolation−2 yrs
10 protective factors
Regular exercise+3 yrs
Non-smoker / quit+3 yrs
Whole-food diet+2 yrs
Good sleep (7–9 hrs)+2 yrs
Strong social ties+2 yrs
Healthy weight+2 yrs
Sense of purpose+2 yrs
Preventive care+2 yrs
Low / no alcohol+2 yrs
Emotional resilience+2 yrs
How it works

Four steps. One conversation.

The tool is designed to fit naturally into a routine consultation — minimal setup, maximum impact.

1
Configure the patient profile
Enter age, biological sex, and health improvement level. Takes under 30 seconds.
2
Select risk & protective factors
Clinician and patient go through the 20 factors together. The chart updates live with every selection.
3
Locate on the health spectrum
Patient places themselves on the six-state health horizon — from Peak Health to Severe. The insight panel responds.
4
Print the take-home summary
Export a branded PDF for the patient — their numbers, their factors, and a plain-language key message from the visit.
Live trajectory chart
Years remaining on current vs improved path, plotted from the patient's current age. Updates instantly as factors are selected or changed.
Personalised insight panel
A context-aware plain-language summary updates with each consultation — tailored to the patient's health state, age, and selected factors.
Clinician branding
Add your name, practice, and logo — displayed in the tool header and embedded in every printed patient handout.
Printable take-home summary
A clean, branded PDF generated from the consultation — the patient's numbers, identified factors, health state, and key message. Ready in one click.
One-click reset
Clear all patient data between consultations instantly. No residual information, no setup delay — ready for the next patient immediately.
Export summary PDF
Beyond printing — generate a standalone HTML file for digital sharing, patient portal upload, or attachment to visit notes.
Evidence base

Grounded in decades of
longevity research

Every factor and its estimated year-impact is drawn from peer-reviewed epidemiological literature. These are not estimates invented for impact — they are simplified reflections of what the science says.

Smoking cessation: Up to 10-year life expectancy gain. Quitting before age 40 recovers ~90% of lost expectancy. (Doll et al., BMJ 2004; NEJM 2013)
Physical activity: 150 min/wk moderate exercise associated with 3–5 year gain and 35% reduction in all-cause mortality. (Lear et al., Lancet 2017)
Diet quality: Mediterranean pattern linked to 3–4 year gain; reduced CVD, T2D, and cancer mortality. (Sofi et al., BMJ 2008)
Social connection: Strong social ties associated with 50% higher survival probability — comparable in magnitude to smoking cessation. (Holt-Lunstad et al., PLOS Med 2010)
Sleep: Consistently <6 hrs linked to 12–13% higher all-cause mortality; untreated sleep apnea elevates cardiovascular risk significantly. (Cappuccio et al., Sleep 2010)
Sense of purpose: Strong purpose associated with 15–20% lower all-cause mortality across multiple longitudinal studies. (Alimujiang et al., JAMA Network Open 2019)
Alcohol: No safe level for cancer risk established. Low/no consumption now recognised as independently protective. (GBD 2016 Alcohol Collaborators, Lancet 2018)
Combined lifestyle: Optimal lifestyle behaviours may confer a 14-year difference in life expectancy between best and worst profiles. (Khaw et al., PLOS Med 2008)

Estimates are illustrative approximations drawn from population-level data. They are not precise predictions for individual patients and should be contextualised by the treating clinician.

Trial study

The inaugural trial — what we're measuring

We are running a pragmatic stepped-wedge cluster trial across 8–15 inaugural clinic sites. Here is what we are measuring and why it matters.

Outcome Instrument Timing Type
Patient activation score PAM-13 (validated 13-item scale, 0–100) Post-consultation Primary
Lifestyle factor discussion Clinician post-consultation checklist Post-consultation Secondary
Patient message recall 3-item free-recall survey 48–72 hours later Secondary
Behaviour change intent Theory of Planned Behaviour (adapted, 3 items) Post-consultation Secondary
Goal-setting rate Single item: specific goal agreed (Y/N) Post-consultation Secondary
Clinician experience 10-item usability and satisfaction survey Monthly + close-out Secondary

The study is designed as a quality improvement intervention — no change to clinical investigation, treatment, or prescribing. This means it is expected to qualify for expedited or exempt ethical review at most institutions. We provide a template ethics application as part of the site onboarding package.

Founding partner offer

What inaugural partners receive

Participation is by invitation. The inaugural cohort is limited to 15 sites. Here is what every founding partner receives.

Free full tool access
Complete access to the Health Horizon Conversation Tool throughout the trial period and beyond.
Clinic branding embedded
Your name, practice, and logo in the tool header and on every printed patient handout generated.
Co-authorship on publication
Named authorship on the primary peer-reviewed paper per ICMJE criteria. Target journals include BJGP and Annals of Family Medicine.
Input into development
Direct influence on the tool's future features, factor weightings, and clinical workflow design.
Founding recognition
Named as a founding Health Horizon partner in all publications, presentations, and future marketing materials.
QI documentation report
A site-level summary report usable for internal quality improvement documentation and accreditation purposes.
Join us

Be among the first
to change the conversation

We are looking for forward-thinking clinics and clinicians in primary care, preventive medicine, cardiology, endocrinology, and allied health to join the inaugural cohort.

Inaugural cohort limited to 15 founding sites — reviewing expressions of interest now
Submit expression of interest → Try the tool first Download study protocol

Questions? Contact us at aaron@healthhorizon.io
A member of the study team will respond within 48 hours.

Primary care Preventive medicine Lifestyle medicine Cardiology Endocrinology Internal medicine Allied health Academic medicine
About

The person
behind the tool

Aaron M. Lamb
Aaron M. Lamb
Creator & Principal Investigator
University of Memphis
College of Professional & Liberal Studies

The Health Horizon Conversation Tool was designed by Aaron M. Lamb, a graduate researcher at the University of Memphis College of Professional & Liberal Studies, working under the academic supervision of Dr. Jeremy Killian, PhD.

The tool emerged from an independent study in healthcare ethics — specifically from the question of whether libertarian paternalism, operationalised through deliberate choice architecture, offers an ethically defensible and practically superior alternative to the clinical neutrality that too often characterises preventive care conversations.

The result is a free, open-access clinical aid grounded in decades of epidemiological literature, designed to make future health trajectories personally concrete at the point of care — and to do so in a way that is transparent, non-coercive, and aligned with each patient's own values.

✉ aaron@healthhorizon.io Join the trial →
Research

Academic work
& publications

Journal Submission — Under Review
Beyond Paternalism: Ethical Nudging and the Design of the Health Horizon Conversation Tool in Patient-Centred Care
Aaron M. Lamb · University of Memphis, 2026
Submitted to: The American Journal of Bioethics
Preprint links will be added upon approval and indexing.
Preprints — SSRN Live · medRxiv Pending
medRxiv & SSRN Preprints
Published on SSRN under CC-BY-NC-ND license. medRxiv pending indexing.
medRxiv DOI link will appear here once indexed.
medRxiv — pending SSRN — View preprint →
Original Frameworks
Dynamic Yearly Importance (DYI) Model
A quantitative framework expressing each remaining life-year as a proportion of life remaining: DYI = 100 ÷ years remaining. As life expectancy decreases, the proportional weight of each remaining year increases — making the stakes of health decisions personally concrete.
Also introduced: the Health Span Compression Index (HSCI) — a model of how modifiable risk and protective factors compress or expand an individual's health trajectory.
Planned Publications
→ Tool description paper — JMIR Formative Research
→ Quality improvement report — BMJ Open Quality
→ Expert Advisory Panel findings — Preventing Chronic Disease
→ Trial results — Annals of Family Medicine or JAMA Network Open
Press & Presentations

Sharing the
work

2026
Summer
Conference Presentation
AGLSP Annual Conference 2026
Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs · Annual Conference
Presentation: "Beyond Paternalism: Designing Ethical Nudges in Healthcare — From Theory to Clinical Tool." Situating the Health Horizon framework at the crossroads of philosophy, behavioural economics, clinical medicine, and liberal studies.
aglsp.org/annual-conference-2026 →
2026
Fall
Poster Presentation
IHI Forum 2026
Institute for Healthcare Improvement Annual Forum · Phoenix, Arizona
Poster presentation: "Designing Ethical Nudges: The Health Horizon Conversation Tool — a structured visual framework operationalising libertarian paternalism at the point of care."
events.ihi.org/forum →