Frequently Asked Questions

The discovery of the blue zones, regions where people live the longest and healthiest lives, can be attributed to Dan Buettner, an adventurer, National Geographic Fellow, and acclaimed author of multiple New York Times bestsellers.

The blue zones originated from the groundbreaking research of Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain, as documented in the Journal of Experimental Gerontology. Their work initially focused on identifying areas with an unusually high concentration of male centenarians, with Sardinia, Italy, emerging as a prominent example.

Pes and Poulain marked these longevity hotspots on the map with concentric blue circles, designating the area inside these circles as the “blue zone.” Building upon this demographic research, Dan Buettner further explored other regions around the world with similar traits of longevity and health.

These extraordinary places —Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California—are home to the world’s longest-living and healthiest communities. Learn more about the original blue zones here.

We distilled more than 150 dietary surveys of the world’s longest-lived people to discover the secrets of a longevity diet. These 11 simple guidelines reflect how the world’s longest-lived people ate for most of their lives. Learn more about the Blue Zones Food Guidelines here.

After discovering the five original blue zones, we assembled a team of medical researchers, anthropologists, demographers, and epidemiologists to search for evidence-based common denominators among all of these extraordinary places. We found nine—we call these the Power 9®.

To learn about all of our communities and active initiatives, visit bluezones.com/transformation

Blue Zones Project is a well-being initiative designed to make healthy choices easier, and to improve the quality of life in the places we live, work, learn, and play. Blue Zones Project has been implemented in over 80 communities across the United States by encouraging sustainable changes in built environments and social networks and by proposing policy changes in worksites, schools, restaurants, grocery stores, faith-based communities, and neighborhoods. By helping people live better and longer through behavior change, communities can lower healthcare costs, improve productivity, access grants and funding available locally and nationally, and enjoy a higher quality of life. Blue Zones Project is based on Blue Zones research and the commonalities found in the original blue zones regions located in Italy, Greece, Costa Rica, Japan, and the U.S.

Many traditional health initiatives offer mainly diet and exercise programs that are well-intended, but rarely sustainable over time. Additionally, they are often narrowly focused on physical health and put into practice without consideration of existing community engagement programs. Blue Zones looks to knock down siloed efforts through an inclusive and comprehensive approach to population health, focusing instead on comprehensively changing a community’s environments so that individuals are nudged subtly but relentlessly into making healthy choices. Blue Zones is unique because it takes a systematic environmental approach to improving well-being through policy, programs, social networks, and the built environment.

We use Gallup’s Well-Being Data to inform our work. Well-being includes not just physical health, but social, financial, mental, and community health. We also know that a person’s environment is a determinant of the many aspects of health. This is powerfully illustrated by the fact that zip code is a strong predictor of life expectancy, exposing the immense health disparities that persist across communities and the country. It also emphasizes the importance of focusing on environmental and systems-level influencers to improve health outcomes. Addressing health at a systems level means acknowledging and identifying the legacy of systems and  structures of racism and poverty that may have been created decades ago but still segregate entire neighborhoods and communities, limiting access to resources and opportunities to live healthy, happier  lives. We believe that communities can address these glaring gaps through informed and directed policy  reform coupled with community-led engagement practices.

Blue Zones utilizes many strategies for improving well-being, although not all will be necessary or applicable in your community. Strategies will be chosen based on the Blue Zones team’s community assessment in concert with community leaders and the Blueprint planning done by a core leadership team made up of citizens and leaders from your community. Strategies focus on three areas of work, including:

People – the environments in individual residents’ homes and personal life

Places – the environments where people spend their time, such as the workplace, grocery stores,  restaurants, etc.

Policy – the environments that impact the entire community, including the built environment,  food systems, and alcohol policy.

Employers (public, private, and not-for-profit) will be offered no-cost tools and consulting to improve employee productivity and well-being. Individuals will have access to free tools that will help them create healthier surroundings for themselves, their families, and the community. These include checklists for setting up a home to improve well-being, an online quiz to project longevity, a coaching tool to improve your well-being, and workshops to deepen a sense of purpose, make new friends, and explore healthier eating. Civic leaders will play a key role by adopting and implementing best practices in policies and programs to improve the built environment, food environment, and smoke-free environment. Restaurants, schools, grocery stores, faith-based communities, and other organizations will participate by pledging to make changes that will create healthier environments for customers, students, members, and residents. Local media outlets will spread the word about Blue  Zones and encourage participation. We see upwards of 80% of residences in communities we work in aware of the project, and 45% plus participating.

Some of the typical changes you can expect:

•Walking school buses that provide students with at least a mile of walking each day

•Partnerships with local grocery stores and convenience stores to promote healthy foods

•Planning for walking and biking paths that promote human-powered transportation

•Establishment of walking, healthy eating, and purpose groups that encourage social  engagement

•Helping local restaurants change menus to include more appealing, healthier choices that  can also help them grow their customer base and revenue

•Targeted solutions for equity prioritization

•Creation of healthier worksites, making healthier choices easier

•Reducing snacking and increasing physical activity in schools

Please fill out the form here for more information on Blue Zones initiatives.