Airdrie’s goal of becoming "Canada’s healthiest community" is continuing to take gradual steps forward.
At a regular meeting June 1, Airdrie City council received an update on the Airdrie Blue Zones Project (ABZP) from Executive Director Kent Rupert and Abrio Health CEO Mark Selant. The presentation outlined the initiative’s progress since its "Discovery Phase" launched in September 2019.
“ABZP has always been an important project, and in today’s world, it becomes even more important in ensuring we take care of ourselves and our neighbours,” Rupert said. “We want to make sure Airdrie residents come out on the other side of this pandemic with healthier lifestyles and even more connection to their community than before.”
The project aims to reduce long-term chronic disease rates in Airdrie through various means – providing nutritious alternatives at grocery stores, restaurants, schools and workplaces or ensuring communities are walkable. According to Rupert, ABZP will use the City of Airdrie’s environmental, policy, social, health and health care networks to create a more holistic sense of well-being.
“Currently, our efforts are focused on activities to create digital tools to spark online implementation and find new ways to engage the community, within the context of physical distancing, and continuing to Canadian-ize ABZP so it will align with our single-pay health system,” he said.
Thus far, according to Rupert, much of Abrio Health’s work has been the completion of the Discovery Phase. Abrio Health has also engaged with more than 200 Airdrie residents to inform them of the project and garner their feedback.
“Now, we’re in the process of putting together a business plan to move it forward – what we call the blueprint,” he said. “To date, we’re probably about three weeks behind where we should have been, even with the COVID situation.
“We were hoping to launch it in mid-June of this year, but that’s been pushed back, with some of the unknowns of how we’re going to continue to move out and engage people.”
He added Abrio Health is developing a project website that will specifically be for Airdrie residents. It will encourage and provide resources for healthy living throughout and following the pandemic. The project’s Facebook page will be another avenue for the project’s promotion, he said.
According to Blue Zones co-founder Tony Buettner, the idea of Blue Zones started as a National Geographic research project looking into why residents of some communities – known as Blue Zones – lived longer, healthier lives than others. The research indicated social determinants of health were found to be common denominators in the communities with the healthiest and longest-living residents. Social determinants of health, according to the Canadian Public Health Association, are the social and economic factors that influence health, such as food security, adequate housing, social safety networks and educational opportunities.
Since then, Blue Zones LLP has established what it calls the Power 9 principles in 50 Blue Zones across the United States, gradually encouraging healthier lifestyles in these communities. According to Buettner, these communities have seen drops in obesity rates and smoking, as well as millions of dollars saved in health care costs.
According to the bluezones.com, Power 9 principles include concepts like having a sense of purpose, consuming more fruits and vegetables, putting loved ones first and engaging in regular natural movement – using your body instead of mechanization to perform daily tasks like gardening and moving from place to place.
“As you implement the program and measure, over time, the changes in a population’s health, you start to realize that people are avoiding preventable chronic disease, and are therefore having less reliance on what we call the ‘sick-care’ system,” Selant said. “In America, where this has been done in 50 communities, that offset is about 30 per cent, when something has been fully implemented. That also gives a corresponding increase in productivity, economic growth and that sort of thing.”
While Blue Zones are becoming more common in the United States, Airdrie would be the first Canadian city to attain Blue Zone status.
An indirect health-related result of the pandemic that has been interesting, Rupert said, has been many people's shift towards healthier choices.
“With COVID, we are seeing people walking more, eating better, planting gardens, finding social connections through digital media, reflecting on their purpose and trying to be healthy overall to get through these times,” he said.
“It’s certainly exciting that many creative solutions are emerging to encourage staying healthy, productive, engaged and satisfied with modified activities to improve our community through resilience to get through this next period.”
During the presentation, Selant spoke about the sale of Blue Zones LLP to American health care provider Avantis Healthcare in March. Despite the change in ownership, he assured council the transaction won’t have a negative impact on the implementation of the ABZP.
“If anything, it offers us greater opportunities for learning the integration of health and health care,” he said. “We view health as physical, mental and spiritual combined, so it’s a very good alignment.”
- With files from Jessi Gowan
Scott Strasser, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @scottstrasser19
