Blue Zones and Community Health Leadership Council Launch Blue Zones Ignite™ to Improve Well-Being of San Joaquin County

STOCKTON, Calif., Jan. 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The San Joaquin County Community Health Leadership Council and Blue Zones, the global leader in longevity research and community well-being transformation, have announced a partnership to launch Blue Zones Ignite™.

Blue Zones uses an evidence-based, environmental approach to making healthy choices easier in the places people spend the most time. The effort begins with an in-depth readiness and feasibility assessment in San Joaquin County that determines how to make it a healthier place to live, work, grow up, and grow older.

The Blue Zones Approach
Blue Zones employs a proven solution in collaboration with communities to help people live better and longer lives. The company's work is based on research and principles developed by National Geographic Fellow and New York Times bestselling author Dan Buettner, who identified the cultures of the world – or blue zones – with the healthiest, longest-living populations.

The Blue Zones expert team connects with San Joaquin County community health leaders and organizations to assess the strengths, needs, and challenges that county residents face today. Blue Zones creates a policy-focused transformation plan that, once implemented, can drive widespread improvements in well-being, reductions in healthcare costs, and improve economic vitality in the region.

"Our mission is to improve the health and well-being of everyone in San Joaquin County and our public health programs are continually exploring ways to address the complex needs of our residents," said Dr. Maggie Park, San Joaquin County Public Health Officer. "This partnership with Blue Zones, along with direct collaboration with the community, furthers our aspiration to make our County a great place to live and thrive."

"We know that 20% of health and longevity is tied to genetics while 80% is tied to where and how we live," said Nadeja Steager, Executive Director for the Community Health Leadership Council San Joaquin. "Blue Zones Ignite™ in San Joaquin County is going to inspire us to celebrate and promote our strong sense of community while we find ways to make our region an even better place to live, work, and play."

The Blue Zones approach focuses on the largest determinant of health: the environment in which we live. Instead of focusing solely on individual behavior change, Blue Zones helps communities make permanent and semi-permanent changes to policies, systems, streets, surroundings, and social networks so it's easier for residents to eat wisely, move naturally, and connect more with others as they move throughout their day. By improving the Life Radius^®—the area close to home where most Americans spend 90% of their lives—Blue Zones transformations have been able to move the needle dramatically in improving overall population health and well-being. Participating communities have seen double-digit drops in obesity and smoking rates, economic investment in downtown corridors, grant funding awards to support policies and programs to improve health equity, and measurable savings in healthcare costs.

Ben Leedle, CEO of Blue Zones and Co-founder of Blue Zones Project, said: "We are excited to partner with San Joaquin County in this powerful opportunity, and commend them for their visionary commitment to boosting countywide well-being. Together, we will create a transformation plan that drives population-level change, leading to healthier and happier residents, more productive workforces and student bodies, and a more vibrant economy."

For more information on Blue Zones Ignite in San Joaquin County, visit bluezones.com/ignite-san-joaquin.

ABOUT BLUE ZONES
Blue Zones employs evidence-based ways to help people live better, longer. The company's work is rooted in explorations and research done by founder and National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner in blue zones regions around the world, where people live extraordinarily long and/or happy lives. The original research and findings were released in Buettner's bestselling books The Blue Zones Solution, The Blue Zones of Happiness, The Blue Zones, Thrive, and Blue Zones Kitchen — all published by National Geographic books. A hit docuseries, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, was released on Netflix in 2023. Using original Blue Zones research, Blue Zones works with cities and counties to make healthy choices easier through permanent and semi-permanent changes to our human-made surroundings. Participating communities have experienced double-digit drops in obesity and tobacco use and have saved millions of dollars in healthcare costs. For more information, visit bluezones.com.

Visit here for San Joaquin County Public Health Services' programs. 

Contact:
Naomi Imatome-Yun, Blue Zones
[email protected]

SOURCE Blue Zones