Morgantown to potentially partner with Blue Zones Project
Buettner said the original project, to find and study the world's healthiest and longest lived populations resulted in five original Blue Zones -- Ikaria,
"To date we've found five places that we call Blue Zones. It is in these places that our team has spent its time figuring out secrets so that we could bring the secrets back and share them with individuals, family, organizations and communities to make healthier choices easier and long lives a reality here in America," Buettner said, noting the 2008 pilot project, in
"We're now in 45 communities. We partner with Gallup to actually measure risk factors and disease prevalence in a population so we can actually calculate what the cost of doing nothing will be,"
In the lead-up to council forming the commission, Wallace gave a presentation last summer during which she offered an explanation of what Blue Zones are and the impacts the program is having elsewhere. Shortly thereafter she heard from a representative of the university who asked if the city had already initiated contact with the
"It was actually a total coincidence that WVU was already in touch with the Blue Zone people. This wasn't planned at all. I had no idea," she said. "We didn't know that WVU had already reached out to them."
Fast forward a year and both the city and university are about to undergo an extensive, four-month assessment. According to Acker, the assessment will include "Qualitative and quantitative analytical work over the next many months to compile for the community a set of recommendations in the form of a report."
According to Acker, the university will pay
Buettner explained that following the assessments, the
"Then we'll determine if the university and community is ready to lead a project of this magnitude and certainly what would the investment or resource allocation look like to do a
"It would be anywhere from a three-to five-year process. Part of the assessment period is also looking at whether a community is ready. If they perceive not enough overall buy-in or not enough leadership or don't feel the community is ready to prioritize this as a project, then they're not going to become invested with us. I know for sure that has to be there for them to say, 'Yep, we want to help you get there.' "
Harshbarger said having the
"The expertise they have and ability to collectively harness our strengths to move in a unified direction in creating a culture of health in our community, I think that's huge," Harshbarger said.
Wallace said she hopes
"If we bring awareness to what a Blue Zone is and start to highlight how things can change positively in terms of people's health, I think that we can be a real shining light to the rest of the state," Wallace said.
___
(c)2018 The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.)
Visit The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.) at www.dominionpost.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
McKee’s Bottle District deals generated millions in tax credits, but no development
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News