About
Advancing Sustainable Health Care with Actuarial Expertise
Actuaries for Sustainable Health Care is an international association of actuaries dedicated to achieving long-term sustainability of health care financing systems through the use of whole food plant-based nutrition. We are not affiliated with any other actuarial organization. We are a non-profit association and do not accept external donations or contributions.
Leadership
Ken Beckman, ASA, ACAS, MAAA, CFA
President
ken.beckman@actuariesforsustainablehealthcare.org
Ken Beckman is an actuary at INS Consultants, Inc. He has 30 years of insurance and actuarial experience primarily in health insurance pricing and valuation. After learning about and personally adopting whole food plant-based nutrition he has been actively writing and speaking about this topic within the actuarial profession as well as within the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Specifically, this work has focused on how health care payers can present the concept of chronic disease reversal through nutrition directly to their members and how actuaries can develop models to incentivize physicians and other health care providers to offer all patients a prescription of plant-based nutrition. He is also President of Lifestyle Health Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to promote awareness among the public that whole food plant-based nutrtition can prevent and reverse chronic disease and improve health. He previously served on the boards of the Lifestyle Medicine Economic Research Consortium and the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies.
Caterina Lindman, Retired Actuary
Vice President
caterina.lindman@actuariesforsustainablehealthcare.org
Caterina Lindman has retired after a 35-year career in the Canadian Life Insurance Industry at Manulife. She earned the FSA designation in 1988 and the FCIA designation in 1989. She is a long-time member and former chairperson of the Actuaries Climate Index Working Group. Please see www.actuariesclimateindex.org. Caterina’s concern for climate change has led her to join Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a non-partisan group of citizens working for effective climate legislation. She also found out about the benefits of whole food plant-based nutrition for mitigating climate emissions and reversing chronic illness through the documentary Forks over Knives. She then did more research and involved her family in the quest to eat more healthily, and is quite happy with the results. Caterina is passionate about the ability of whole food plant-based nutrition to help people regain their health and to make healthcare systems less costly and more effective.
Russ Osborn, FSA, MAAA, CFA, CERA
Vice President
russ.osborn@actuariesforsustainablehealthcare.org
Russ Osborn has over 30 years of experience as a life insurance actuary, primarily focused on risk management, hedging, and design of new reporting frameworks/systems. Russ became interested in plant-based nutrition in 2009, after listening to a podcast lecture by Dr. John McDougall on the hazards of consuming dairy. This led Russ to read further research from Drs. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dean Ornish, Michael Greger, and T. Colin Campbell, among a growing number of plant-based physicians and researchers. His family of six all switched to a whole food plant-based (WFPB) diet around the same time, and quickly realized numerous benefits in terms of weight loss, energy level, overall wellness (as measured by any standard medical/blood stats), and the circumvention of the need for ongoing medications. Russ finds the evidence in favor of eating a plant-based diet to be overwhelmingly compelling, and remains optimistic that eating animal foods will go the way of tobacco use (at least, in the US), and for the very same reasons. What is more, interestingly, Russ finds far more enjoyment in eating than he ever did before switching to WFPB. He loves experiencing new tastes, especially from the wonderful array of dishes his spouse creates from simple whole foods and spices. He is pleased that his four (now grown) children, their spouses, and two grandchildren, continue to follow a plant-based diet.
Salina Shah, FSA, MAAA
Vice President
salina.shah@actuariesforsustainablehealthcare.org
Salina Shah is the former Chief Operating Officer at NutriSure, a start-up brand that enables individuals to choose more healthy plant-based foods and rewards those who do so with better value health insurance. She has nearly 25 years of actuarial experience in employer benefits consulting that spans retirement, health, and data analytics and innovation. While researching the connection between diet and chronic diseases to improve health outcomes for family members, Salina discovered the documentary Forks Over Knives and learned about the ability of plant-based nutrition to address chronic diseases. She completed the Plant-Based Nutrition certification program at the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies to learn more and was struck by the extensive body of evidence-based scientific literature demonstrating improved health outcomes (including the prevention, treatment and even reversal of chronic conditions) through whole plant food nutrition that has gone mostly unrecognized by both health care professionals and health care financing experts. Salina also founded Ahimsa Consulting LLC to promote better health through whole plant foods, especially in the South Asian community, which bears a disproportionate burden of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Raja Malkani, ASA, MAAA
Vice President
raja.malkani@actuariesforsustainablehealthcare.org
Raja Malkani has about 15 years of actuarial experience, mostly at the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI). In his last role at TDI, he was involved in regulating rates for health insurance products, especially major medical and long-term care insurance. Raja switched to a plant-based diet in 2010 after reading The China Study and became further influenced the following year after seeing Forks Over Knives. He currently works at the University of Texas School of Public Health, where he has been trying to convince his colleagues about the health benefits of plant-based nutrition.
Actuaries for Sustainable Health Care was founded in 2017 by Ken Beckman, Caterina Lindman, and Russ Osborn.