The Bakersfield Californian

What might a ‘blue zone’ mean for area residents?

BY CLAUDIA ELLIOTT

Four members of the board of directors of Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District attended a special meeting at Adventist Health Tehachapi Valley hospital last week to learn about a concept called blue zones. Additional presentations were made to representatives of the city of Tehachapi, local organizations and hospital staff.

Blue zones are regions of the world where demographers have found that people live longer and happier lives. The Blue Zone Project has built upon this research to help communities address health, wellness and equity challenges with an aim of improving well-being.

BACKGROUND

You might have seen the National Geographic magazine cover in November 2005. The cover photo was a man standing on his head and the headline read: “The Secrets of Living Longer.”

The secrets of long life, as described by author Dan Buettner in 12 pages of the magazine, included information he and other

researchers had gathered visiting three hot spots for longevity — Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; and Loma Linda, Calif.

The author was part of a team funded in part by the U.S. National Institute on Aging. The team included Michel Poulain, who earlier had worked with others to publish a report of a study of extreme longevity in Sardinia, Italy. In that study, demographers used a blue marker pen to circle areas around the world where they discovered greater longevity — thus the term blue zone was born.

Dan Buettner became a longevity expert, going on to write a number of popular books about blue zones — and founding Blue Zones, an organization that went on to describe additional diverse geographical or cultural regions where it purports that residents lived extraordinarily long and/or happy lives — adding Nicoya, Costa Rica, and Ikaria, Greece to the original list.

Loma Linda is a city with one of the largest densities of Seventh-day Adventist populations. In April 2020, Adventist Health acquired the Blue Zones organization. According to a news release issued at the time, the organization’s work in more than 50 communities across the country was credited with double-digit drops in obesity, smoking and body mass index, achieving millions of dollars of savings in healthcare costs.

Nick Buettner, program director for the Blue Zones Project, is Dan Buettner’s brother and made the local presentations at Adventist Health Tehachapi Valley in person.

He was introduced by Edward Martin, site administrator at the hospital. Martin noted that the Blue Zones Project aligns with Adventist Health’s mission, but must be a community effort. His goal in inviting healthcare district directors, city officials and others to the presentation was to provide inspiration.

PEOPLE, PLACES AND POLICY

In his presentation to the healthcare district board, Nick Buettner emphasized that the Blue Zones Project is not a healthcare program, but is a well-being program.

Taking a look at people, places and policy, the project works with communities to create sustainable solutions to improve population health and economic vitality.

The Blue Zones Project website describes the organization’s work with three Southern California beach cities — Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach.

The communities engaged with the Blue Zones Project around 2010 because childhood obesity levels were higher than the national average and stress levels were particularly high. In Manhattan Beach, as an example, they measured the same as Detroit or post-Katrina New Orleans.

Data shared by the Blue Zones Project showed the communities had a 15 percent drop in obese and overweight adults between 2010 and 2017. The impact was that by 2017 the rate of obesity in the beach cities was less than half of the rate of the U.S. overall.

Other metrics improved as well. In 2015 the cities collectively earned the highest Well-Being Index score in the U.S., topping the scores of all 190 metropolitan areas in the index.

Among the economic benefits for the three cities, according to the Blue Zones Project, were an estimated savings of $74 million in direct medical expenses by 2020 and a $51 million reduction in lost productivity.

LOCAL REACTION

The healthcare district owns the local hospital that is operated by Adventist Health under a long-term lease. The district has plans to build a community resource center on the downtown property it owns (site of the former Tehachapi Valley Hospital). And it has been working to identify unmet health needs in the community.

Four members of the district board were present or participating in the special meeting virtually — Carl Gehricke, Duane Moats, Christine Sherrill and William Steele. Board President Mike Nixon was unable to attend and the board took no action at the meeting.

Following the meeting, District CEO Caroline Wasielewski said board members expressed interest in the program.

“We asked questions about how communities usually fund it and (were told) that it’s usually a health system or even an insurance company that sponsors the program, since it’s all value based,” she said. “Sometimes different entities contribute to the cost.

“We did all agree that something like this would be amazing for Tehachapi,” Wasielewski said.

Tehachapi City Manager Greg Garrett was present at another presentation on Aug. 3.

“The Blue Zone process is yet another example of Adventist Health’s strength at the corporate and local level in leading the way with world-class health care in the form of grassroots efforts to engage citizens and community to better themselves and lead a healthier lifestyle,” Garrett said. “We believe a coalition may be formed that would continue to lead us into a stronger daily routine for all of Tehachapi and our east Kern region.”

The city won’t be heading up such an effort, however.

“While we appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this project, the city is committed to concentrating on our core business, which is serving the public in the form of maintaining critical infrastructure and providing world-class public safety that is critical to our future,” Garrett said.

“Our city and community is blessed to have Adventist Health Tehachapi Valley and will continue to support the people and process that allow health care in our region to rise,” he added.

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2022-08-10T07:00:00.0000000Z

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