Blue Zones and Marshall Join Forces to Help Transform the Health of El Dorado Hills, CA

Blue Zones to assess community's well-being and create plan to help residents live better and longer

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif., Aug. 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Marshall today announced the launch of Blue Zones Ignite, a well-being initiative that uses an evidence-based approach to make healthy choices easier in all the places people spend the most time. The effort begins with an in-depth readiness and feasibility assessment of El Dorado Hills that will help determine how to make the community a healthier place to live, work, grow up, and grow older.

The multi-day assessment will take place from Sept. 16-18 and kick off with a public Blue Zones keynote event featuring Blue Zones Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer Dan Buettner, Jr. All members of the community are invited to attend. The keynote event will be held on Sept. 16 from 4:00 PM - 6:30 PM in the Patra Corp. building in El Dorado Hills located at 4207 Town Center Blvd., Building A, Suite 100.

In addition, community members may be invited to share their opinions and desires for the community in focus groups and one-on-one or small group interviews with members of the Blue Zones team.

"Like Blue Zones, Marshall empowers every community member to live an elevated, active, and longer life," says Jonathan Russell, Chief Ambulatory Officer at Marshall. "Our independence and local governance are our strength, enabling us to quickly and effectively address the needs of our community in a way that simply isn't possible for some of our larger healthcare counterparts. In addition to key partnerships that bring nationally renowned care to our patients in El Dorado County, our teams step outside the clinical setting to help shape the environment in which our community lives and works. Marshall's local focus and national expertise foster care and outcomes that echo Blue Zones' population health goals."

Blue Zones will work with the Marshall team and other community leaders to determine how to make El Dorado Hills a healthier place to live, work, and thrive. Together with the community, the Blue Zones team will assess readiness and build a plan for change.

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 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 the Blue Zones Project, said: "The Blue Zones Ignite launch in El Dorado Hills builds on the energy and vision of the local community, with Marshall providing trusted leadership every step of the way. Together, we are building a plan for change, based on our proven model that improves well-being through place-based and policy-driven strategies. Communities with higher well-being experience lower healthcare costs, greater productivity, and stronger civic engagement—and that's what we're working toward together."

The Blue Zones expert team will connect with El Dorado Hills leaders and organizations to begin immediate work assessing the strengths, needs, and challenges that residents are facing today. Blue Zones will then create 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.

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 www.bluezones.com.

About Marshall Medical Center

Marshall is an independent, nonprofit community healthcare provider located in the heart of the Sierra Foothills. Marshall includes Marshall Hospital, a fully accredited acute care facility with 111 beds in Placerville; several outpatient facilities in Cameron Park, El Dorado Hills, Placerville, and Georgetown; and many community health and education programs. Marshall has over 220 licensed practitioners and over 1,600 employees providing quality healthcare services to more than 180,000 residents of El Dorado County.

Contacts:

Naomi Imatome-Yun
Blue Zones
[email protected]

Fernando Diaz
Executive Director of Marketing and Communications
Marshall Medical Center
[email protected]

SOURCE Blue Zones