20 Things We Should Redesign in 2025 for a Healthier, More Secure World

Spoiler alert: Most of these solutions don't require massive investments in new technology – just bold entrepreneurs, solid business models, and good design.

As we navigate an increasingly complex world, some of our most pressing health challenges don't need breakthrough technologies or billions in research funding. Instead, they require thoughtful redesign of incentives, existing systems and tools. Here are 20 areas we at Humanity Health Ventures think are ripe for innovation in 2025:

1. Nutrition Labels That Actually Make Sense

Ever tried calculating portions from a bag of chips meant for "3 servings"? Our current nutrition labels seem designed to confuse rather than inform. A shift to caloric density measurements would make it instantly clear how energy-dense our foods are, regardless of serving size. This simple change could revolutionize how we make food choices. Imagine picking up any package and immediately understanding its nutritional impact without mental mathematics or serving size confusion.

2. The Annual Physical: Beyond the Checkbox

The current model of annual physicals feels like a ritualistic time-sink rather than preventive healthcare. Are we really expecting 20 minutes a year (if you’re lucky)  to have any meaningful impact on our health? We need a redesign that emphasizes deeper engagement, personalized risk assessment, preventive strategies, and continuous health monitoring rather than a one-size-fits-all checklist approach. Many have tried and failed, but that doesn't mean it’s not worth fixing.

3. Indoor Air Quality for the Post-COVID Era

COVID-19 taught us that indoor air quality isn't just about comfort – it's about survival. Actively monitoring and managing indoor air quality can significatly reduce transmission of both seasonal and emerging respiratory viruses and our exposure to fine particulates and allergens. This isn't just about ventilation; it's about creating truly healthy indoor environments, which in modern times is where we spend most of our time.

4. The Household Medicine Cabinet

Generic drugs and supplements fill our cabinets, but their full potential remains unexplored. We need systematic research into repurposing existing medications, into which individual companies are not typically incentivized to invest. Yes, developing new therapies is critically important, but it's far more cost-effective to understand the full potential of what may already be in your medicine cabinet or at the local pharmacy. This includes studying new applications for old drugs and understanding how common supplements might work together.

5. Self-Administerable Vaccine Patches

Vaccine hesitancy and cold-chain requirements shouldn't be barriers to global health. Self-administered vaccine patches could revolutionize how we handle both routine immunizations and pandemic response, especially in remote or resource-limited settings. These patches could eliminate the need for trained medical personnel, reduce waste, and make vaccination as simple as applying a bandage.

6. The Modern Bedroom: Sleep Sanctuary

Our bedrooms have become multi-purpose spaces for work, entertainment, and (occasionally) sleep. We need to redesign these spaces to prioritize rest, potentially incorporating features like built-in sleeping pods or soundproof zones that create true sleep sanctuaries accessible at all price points. This could include smart lighting systems that mirror natural circadian rhythms, sound-dampening architecture, and modular furniture that transforms spaces from day to night use.

7. Real-Time Immune System Monitoring

The immune system remains a black box despite its crucial role in everything from infectious diseases to cancer. We need non-invasive ways to monitor immune function in real time, enabling earlier disease detection and more effective treatments. Imagine wearing a simple device that could alert you to immune system changes before you even feel sick, detect sepsis, or help design better drug trials for cancer or autoimmune diseases.

8. Better Recycling

It seems like recycling has become a mindless ritual for many of us. And can anyone decipher that flyer we get with the pictures of what can and cannot be recycled? We need a complete overhaul to make it more efficient and user-friendly. We need systems that make it obvious what can be recycled and ensure materials actually get processed properly. Why is this on the list for health? Well for one, a healthier planet leads to a healther human population. But more importantly, recycling is one of the few ways all of us are empowered, so we better make sure it works.

9. Lead Exposure Monitoring

With aging infrastructure in many cities, we need better systems for monitoring and addressing lead exposure, in our water, in our foods, and in our blood, particularly in vulnerable communities. This should include real-time water quality monitoring, accessible blood testing, and transparent reporting systems that empower communities to protect themselves.

10. Early Warning Pandemic Systems

We need robust systems that can detect and track potential pandemics before they become global crises, integrating data from multiple sources including human, environmental, mobility, and animal, in real time. This is quickly becoming the cold fusion of our day - always 15 years away, never here. We need to move beyond promises and create practical, implementable solutions that can actually work in the real world.

11. National Health Metrics Dashboard

While we obsess over GDP and unemployment rates, we lack clear, accessible metrics for our nation's overall health. We need standardized ways to measure and communicate population health status and health system resilience. Only then can we take measures to improve it. This dashboard should include not just disease rates but also measures of health system capacity, preventive care utilization, and social determinants of health.

12. Exposomics Tracking

With 80,000+ chemicals in our environment, we need better ways to understand and monitor our exposure to potentially harmful substances in our air, water, food, and built environment. This includes developing better personal and community exposure monitoring tools, creating comprehensive databases of benchmark exposure levels, and establishing better causal models on how these exposure translate to all human diseases.

13. Household Pathogen Monitoring

As we've learned from recent health crises, early detection of pathogens at the household level could be crucial for public health. There is tremendous potential for generating real-time data on seasonal and emerging infections by simply monitoring what is coming out of the toilet. But doing this on a municipal level as we do now loses the most valuable feature - actionability on a household level. Smart home systems could provide early warnings of infection risks while maintaining privacy.

14. Flavorful, Nutritious Produce

American fruits and vegetables often prioritize shelf life over taste. By redesigning our agricultural and distribution systems to prioritize flavor alongside nutrition, we could naturally encourage healthier eating habits. This includes developing better storage and transportation methods, supporting local farming initiatives, and breeding varieties that balance taste, nutrition, and durability. 

15. Better Scientific Research & Development Funding Models

Funding, whether from governments, philanthropies, or private investors, often goes to the most marketable or flashy solutions. But leaves behind the often boring work that can have the best impact on long-term public health challenges. Better models on how we fund R&D can reward practical, implementable solutions over headline-grabbing breakthroughs, reduce risk, and help moblize more funding from new funders to solve the most-critical problems more effectively.

16. The Modern Kitchen

Our kitchens are still designed primarily around principles from the 1950s, emphasizing storage of processed foods and quick preparation of meals. We need a redesign that makes cooking fresh, healthy meals the path of least resistance. Imagine kitchens with dedicated spaces for growing herbs and microgreens, smart storage that prioritizes fresh ingredients, and layouts that make meal prep more social and engaging. The goal isn't just to make cooking easier, but to make healthy cooking the natural choice.

17. Public Spaces for Movement

Most public spaces are designed for either sitting or purposeful exercise, with little in between. We need to reimagine parks, plazas, and urban spaces to naturally encourage movement throughout the day. This could include interactive art installations that respond to movement, multi-generational play spaces that adults actually want to use, and walking paths that make choosing active transport more appealing than driving.

18. Health Information we Can Trust

It’s never been harder to find health information we know we can trust, and to have it when we actually need it. Getting information online is riddled with mis-, dis-, and mal- information, and how many us actually remember let alone put into practice what we hear from our primary care visits (see item #2 above)? We need a whole new model for how scientific and health evidence reaches the masses, and will have to go where the masses make the decisions that impact their health rather than expecting them to listen to our lectures.

19. Climate-Resilient Home Design

Our homes weren't designed for the extreme weather events we're increasingly facing - from heat waves to air quality emergencies. We need to reimagine residential spaces to naturally maintain livable conditions without massive energy consumption. This means moving beyond just adding air conditioning or air purifiers, to fundamental design changes: passive cooling systems, natural ventilation patterns, built-in clean air rooms, and flexible spaces that can adapt to various climate emergencies. These features shouldn't be luxury add-ons, but standard elements that help everyone stay healthy as our climate changes.

20. Chronic Disease Prevention Spaces

Our built environment often subtly encourages behaviors that lead to chronic diseases - from sedentary lifestyles to poor eating habits. We need to flip this dynamic, creating spaces that naturally guide people toward healthier choices. Imagine office buildings designed to make taking the stairs more appealing than the elevator, neighborhoods that make walking to get groceries easier than driving, and public spaces that provide attractive alternatives to sitting for hours. These shouldn't feel like health interventions, but rather natural, enjoyable ways to move through daily life that happen to prevent chronic disease.

The beauty of these redesigns lies in their accessibility – most don't require revolutionary scientific breakthroughs, just smarter approaches to existing challenges. By rethinking these fundamental aspects of our daily lives and health systems, we could create significant improvements in public health and well-being.

What do you think? Which of these areas would you prioritize first? Are there other aspects of health and security that need redesigning in 2025?