Health and Well-Being Risks for Organizations and People: How Innovative Business Strategies Can Better Understand and Address These Challenges

From climate disasters to technological disruptions, society faces an unprecedented wave of risks that threaten global stability and economic security. Each year, over 20 million people die due to pollution, disease, accidents, and environmental hazards, while millions more suffer long-term health effects. Yet, within these challenges lie vast business opportunities for industries prepared to lead in risk mitigation.

This book examines how the healthcare, insurance, construction, and manufacturing sectors can adapt, innovate, and thrive in a world increasingly characterized by unpredictable risks. From addressing systemic vulnerabilities in the healthcare industry to integrating sustainability into manufacturing practices, leaders must reassess their strategies to strike a balance between resilience and profitability.

As technology accelerates societal integration, whether through cyber advancements or social media, the pace at which risks emerge and propagate continues to grow. Companies that embrace this new reality, integrating risk mitigation into their business models, will not only safeguard their operations but also unlock new opportunities for innovation, market expansion, and sustained competitive advantage. Those that fail to adapt will be left behind in the wake of creative destruction.

This book is a roadmap for forward-thinking professionals, providing insights, strategies, and frameworks to navigate emerging risks and position their businesses for long term success.

William B. Rouse is a Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, as well as a Senior Fellow in the office of the Senior Vice President for Research, Professor Emeritus, and former Chair of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Principal at Curis Meditor, a firm focused on the health of people, processes, organizations, and society. His research focuses on understanding and managing complex public-private systems such as healthcare delivery, higher education, transportation, and national security, with emphasis on the mathematical and computational modeling of these systems for policy design and analysis.

Rouse has written hundreds of articles and book chapters and has authored many books, including most recently Design of a Human-Centered Society (Routledge, 2024), Beyond Quick Fixes (Oxford, 2023), Bigger Pictures for Innovation (Routledge, 2023), Transforming Public-Private Ecosystems (Oxford, 2022), Failure Management (Oxford, 2021), Computing Possible Futures (Oxford, 2019), Universities as Complex Enterprises (Wiley, 2016), Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises (Wiley, 2015), Understanding and Managing the Complexity of Healthcare (MIT Press, 2014), Economic Systems Analysis and Assessment (Wiley, 2011), People and Organizations: Explorations of Human-Centered Design (Wiley, 2007), Essential Challenges of Strategic Management (Wiley, 2001) and the award-winning Don’t Jump to Solutions (Jossey-Bass, 1998). He has edited or co-edited numerous books including Perspectives on Complex Global Challenges (Wiley, 2016), Engineering the System of Healthcare Delivery (IOS Press, 2010), The Economics of Human Systems Integration (Wiley, 2010), Enterprise Transformation: Understanding and Enabling Fundamental Change (Wiley, 2006), Organizational Simulation: From Modeling & Simulation to Games & Entertainment (Wiley, 2005), the best-selling Handbook of Systems Engineering and Management (Wiley, 1999, 2009), and the eight-volume series Human/Technology Interaction in Complex Systems (Elsevier).

Among many advisory roles, he has served as Chair of the Committee on Human Factors (now Board on Human Systems Integration) of the National Academies, a member of the advisory committee for the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of the National Academies, a member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, and a member of the DoD Senior Advisory Group on Modeling and Simulation. He has been designated a lifetime National Associate of the National Research Council and National Academies. Rouse is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has been elected a fellow of four professional societies -- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS), and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES).

Rouse received his B.S. from the University of Rhode Island, and his S.M. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.