Aaron Carroll

South Texas Cities Test Blue Zones Prevention at Million-Person Scale

Methodist Healthcare Ministries chief executive Jaime Wesolowski and Blue Zones founder Dan Buettner argue that South Texas can become a large-scale test of longevity work built around prevention rather than clinical care. In a session at Aspen Ideas: Health, they described a potential seven-city Rio Grande Valley effort that would use local institutions, city policy, food environments, walkability, faith groups and social networks to make healthier daily choices easier for roughly 1mn people. Their case is that the region’s severe chronic-disease burdens coexist with cultural assets — family, faith, connection and traditional foodways — that could be amplified rather than replaced.