Blue Zones in the Workplace

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

Blue Zones Project is a well-being improvement project founded by Dan Buettner who traveled around the world to find where people live the happiest, healthiest, and the longest. The people living in the original blue zones areas don’t live longer, or better because they have superior access to care, or the best doctors on the planet — instead, their environment naturally leads them to preventing diseases from ever occurring. From these areas, he found common traits in how they ate, their outlook, and their overall lifestyle. The County of Erie with over 1,200 employees brought these same principles to its worksites and in February of 2021, received the distinction of becoming a Blue Zones (BZ) Approved Worksite worksites. The County follows the BZ evidence-based actions and lifestyle principles to create healthier work environments for employees. This initiative identifies best practices for enhancing the workplace to make the healthy choice the easy choice. The Blue Zones worksite project focuses on prevention and everyday healthy living to improve and extend the lives of our employees. By incorporating initiatives that focus on people, environment, and policy the BZ Project is able to vastly improve health outcomes for employees