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By Steve Taylor and Dayna Reyes, Reporters
MCALLEN, Texas – The dates and venues for four Blue Zones Ignite Community Keynote Events have been announced.
Two will be held on February 26 – at Mission Event Center, starting at 12:00 noon, and at McAllen Convention Center, starting at 5:00 p.m. And two will be held on February 27 – at the Pharr One Center, starting at 9:00 a.m., and at Edinburg Municipal Auditorium, starting at 1:00 p.m. The events are free to the public.
The project is being spearheaded by Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc., in conjunction with Blue Zones. A kickoff event was held a couple of weeks ago at McAllen First United Methodist Church.
“Methodist Healthcare Ministries is bringing together civic and community leaders to work with Blue Zones to make healthy choices easier and more accessible for all who live in and visit Rio Grande Valley. Through community well-being enhancements, we are working to help the region’s citizens thrive and reach their full potential for health and for life,” MHM stated.
“Blue Zones is the proven innovator for improving the well-being of large populations, with remarkable success in cities, businesses, and states across America.”
MHM said that in this phase, Blue Zones global experts are performing a structured exploration of Rio Grande Valley, otherwise known as a Readiness Assessment.
“They are working with our local community health leaders and organizations to learn and assess the state of our well-being. Becoming a Blue Zones Community is a three-phase process, and the Readiness Assessment is the first step.”
Under the Readiness Assessment phase, Blue Zones experts will collaborate with leaders to assess readiness and build a plan for change. “During this period, we will: educate and mobilize local leaders and residents, evaluate the community’s current state of well-being, identify the highest priority strengths, challenges and opportunities, and produce and present a plan for community transformation,” the group stated.
Blue Zones added: “Using secrets discovered in the original blue zones—rare longevity hotspots around the world where people are thriving into their 100s—we help people live better, longer through community transformation programs that lower healthcare costs, improve productivity, and boost national recognition as great places to live, work, and play.”
Editor’s Note: Here is a video interview with Sandra Martinez, a vice president at Methodist Healthcare Ministries, about the new project:
Laura Disque’s Perspective
Laura, Disque, CEO of Rio Grande Regional Hospital, is a supporter of the project.
“I was privileged to sit through a CEO roundtable with my colleagues, local colleagues, hospital administrators and leaders to talk about the opportunity to partner with Methodist Healthcare Ministries and Blue Zones to evaluate the current status and the possibility of improving the health of our community,” Disque saaid.
Disque said that while a supporter of the project, she is still learning of its intricacies.
“I just did a little background research myself. I watched the documentaries and read up a little bit about Blue Zones, and today at the CEO roundtable, it was our opportunity to have that intimate conversation, to learn more about what they do in the communities and how we could partner to to enhance education, wellness, well-being, preventative health, population health in our community,” Disque said.
“So it was an opportunity for us to ask questions in a more intimate setting, to better understand what they do, what the assessment would entail, what data they’re looking for and how it all plays out.”
Disque said she is very proud of her community.
“I think we’re already doing a lot of things to promote health and wellness. But, we’re doing it in silos. And we heard that this morning at the CEO roundtable, and we heard it this evening through the mayors and different entities. So, coming together, and we’re very good about that here in south Texas, we can really come together and work together.”
Disque added: Working with Blue Zones and Healthcare Ministries will bring us together to put all those efforts and resources in one place that will benefit the entire Rio Grande Valley. I’m excited, and I look forward to future meetings, knowledge, education and helping support the initiative and support my community.”
Dan Buettner Jr.’s Perspective
Dan Buettner, Jr., JD, is executive vice president and chief development officer of Blue Zones. He said:
“I get the honor of partnering with American communities that want to flex some civic muscle and some self determination around making the healthy choice, the easy choice, for their communities, for their schools, for their restaurants, for their policies.”
Buettner said Blue Zones only goes where it is invited. He said he was pleased to have been invited to Hidalgo County.
“We’ve had the honor of partnering and meeting and doing discovery with Edinburg, Pharr, Mission and McAllen and over 100 people showed up tonight for their first briefing. But in the next six months, over 500-600 people in each of these communities have already signed up to learn,” Buettner said.
“I call it the dating period, to see if RGV is a good fit for Blue Zones and if Blue Zones a good fit for RGV. Because, at the end of the day, what we’ll do is a big lift. It’s not magic dust that’s sprinkled. It’s real hard work that happens.”
Buettner was quick to point out that work is not going to be done by Blue Zones.
“It’s going to be work that’s a continuation of what’s happening in these four cities in this county, Hidalgo County, and tonight, we kicked it off. We put the notice out that we’re doing this with Methodist Healthcare Ministries and with these cities, and now we need to go deeper and deeper and deeper into people, places and policies in each of these four communities to see if they’re ready to go and if we’re ready to go,” Buettner said.
“This can be a story unlike any that Blue Zones has ever been a part. The RGV has its unique set of challenges and its unique set of assets. And I think, together, it could be a real demonstration for the rest of the country of what’s possible. But that’s going to be up to RGV.”
Jaime Wesolowski’s Perspective
Jaime Wesolowski is president and CEO of Methodist Healthcare Ministries.
“Our mission has always been to improve the health and well-being of the communities we serve, and bringing Blue Zones Ignite™ to the cities of Edinburg, McAllen, Mission and Pharr is a powerful step toward that vision,” Wesolowski said.
“This initiative will help us work hand-in-hand with local partners and residents to create environments that make healthy choices easier and more accessible—so that everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential for health and life.”
Wesolowski continued: “We are so excited to be bringing an organization by the name of Blue Zones into the Rio Grande Valley, and our board at Methodist healthcare Ministries has approved the funding of an assessment period. So we’re going to assess four cities in Hidalgo County – McAllen, Mission, Pharr, and Edinburg. Over the next six months or so we’re going to look and see how ready each one of them might be to bring in a Blue Zones program.”
“So what is a Blue Zones program? So man by the name of Dan Buettner, Sr, over 20 years ago, did a lot of research throughout the world, and he found there are five areas within the world that have life expectancy that are about ten times our life expectancy. So, ten times the number of people that live to 100; ten times the number of people that live in 90, etc.
“And then he studied them to find out, what are the commonalities there? Each one’s a little bit different, but it’s a lot of things, and they call it the Power Nine. So a lot of it, yes it is diet, the types of foods that you eat, it is some exercise and being able to move around. But a lot of it is what the Rio Grande Valley does so well: socialization, being with family, things like that. It is purpose.
“If you ask Dan Buettner, Sr., what is the most important one of those nine, he’ll say purpose. You’ve got to have purpose in life. So anyway, we’re excited about bringing that to the Rio Grande Valley.”
Wesolowski said that in his organization, he is always asking, how do we know it is working. He said that will be easy to answer with this project.
“Blue Zones partners with the Gallup organization. So, we decide in each community what’s the most important thing to measure. So, of course, diabetes is very high here, right? So more than likely we’re going to choose diabetes. And can we reverse that trend of increasing diabetes? Stop the increase and start watching it go down. And we’re going to have proof through the Gallup organization that what we’re doing is actually working.”
Methodist Healthcare Ministries and Blue Zones kicked off the project a couple of weeks ago with an introductory event at the Methodist Church in McAllen.
“We’re going to be back in next month, in February, to get it kicked off with each of the four cities, and then about five months or so after that, we’re going to be back to make some announcements and to get something started, hopefully with at least one of those cities.”
Why MHM changed its strategic plan
“At Methodist Healthcare Ministries, we really changed our whole strategic plan,” Wesolowski said. “So we’re 30 years old now. The first 25 years, what we did was we worked on the health care for people – medical, dental, behavioral health care for the uninsured. Basically, that’s mostly what we did.
“And we started looking at health outcomes in all the areas that we served, 74 counties. And in most of those areas, the health outcomes were getting worse. So, we’re pouring millions of dollars into this, and we’re looking at health outcomes getting worse.
“So, we said we need to keep doing the health care, but we need to add to that. We need to look at things that make people sick or keep people healthy in the first place. And so that’s why Blue Zones is perfect. What can we do with Blue Zones? We can try to keep people healthy and reverse those trends. Specifically, the Rio Grande Valley.”
Asked why MHM chose the Valley, Wesolowski said:
“We chose the Rio Grande Valley because of… just the high incidence of diabetes and things like that. And so when I was talking to Dan Buettner, Sr, a couple years ago… I’m getting so excited about learning about Blue Zones and he was getting equally excited about doing Blue Zones in the Rio Grande Valley. Because, if we can make a difference here, it can be done anywhere. And I just can’t wait to see the results.”
About Blue Zones
Blue Zones employs evidence-based ways to help people live better, longer. The company’s work is rooted in explorations and research done by founder and National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner in blue zones regions around the world, where people live extraordinarily long and/or happy lives. The original research and findings were released in Buettner’s bestselling books The Blue Zones Solution, The Blue Zones of Happiness, The Blue Zones, Thrive, and Blue Zones Kitchen—all published by National Geographic books. A hit docuseries, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, was released on Netflix in 2023. Using original Blue Zones research, Blue Zones works with cities and counties to make healthy choices easier through permanent and semi-permanent changes to our human-made surroundings. Participating communities have experienced double-digit drops in obesity and tobacco use and have saved millions of dollars in healthcare costs. For more information, visit www.bluezones.com.
About Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.
Methodist Healthcare Ministries broadens the definition of healthcare by providing low-cost clinical care for the uninsured and by supporting community-led efforts that improve living conditions that cause people to be sick in the first place. Using its earnings as co-owners of Methodist Healthcare, the organization strives to ensure that people who are economically disadvantaged and uninsured can live their healthiest lives. This is accomplished by advocating for, investing in and providing access to quality clinical care and addressing factors that affect health—including economic mobility, supportive relationships, food security, broadband access, and safe neighborhoods. Ultimately, the organization fulfills its mission of ‘Serving Humanity to Honor God’ by advancing health equity so that more resilient individuals and families living in its 74-county South and Central Texas service area can thrive.
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