Recognition by respected organizations is reassuring and fulfilling. Within the last few weeks, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the United States Conference of Mayors independently came to the same conclusion: Blue Zones Projects profoundly and objectively improve individuals' and communities’ health and well-being.
Allen S. Weiss, MD, FACP, FACR, MBA
Recent posts by Allen S. Weiss, MD, FACP, FACR, MBA
4 min read
AHA and US Conference of Mayors Recognize Blue Zones Project Value and Impact
Topics: Bulletin
5 min read
Data-Driven Approaches to Improving Well-Being
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there” is a paraphrase from Lewis Carroll’s
Adventures in Wonderland. Metrics matter, and having easy access to comprehensive, contemporaneous, accurate knowledge will help everyone live a longer, happier, and healthier life.
Topics: Bulletin
3 min read
Brevard, NC Celebrates Blue Zones Project Anniversary and Success
Brevard, in the mountains of Western North Carolina, is an exemplary Blue Zones Project that recently celebrated its anniversary. The community’s transformation serves as a model for the surrounding region and the entire nation.
Topics: Bulletin
2 min read
September is National Women in Medicine Month
Currently, about half of medical school matriculants are women. However, decades ago, the percentage of women entering medical school was in the single digits. This fact was true with my class starting in 1969, having fewer than ten women out of 132 total at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.
The profoundly positive influence of women in all professions has been documented in many objective studies. Pertinent to medicine, do patient outcomes differ between those treated by male and female physicians? Two recent statistical studies have shown decreased mortality rates for hospitalized patients cared for by female physicians.
Topics: Bulletin
2 min read
Long Commutes Stifle Creativity and Productivity
“
Commuting Hurts Productivity and Your Best Talent Suffers Most” is not only the title of an article from
Harvard Business School but also an important consideration as society readjusts post-pandemic, even if slowly, from working at home to returning to the office.
Topics: Bulletin
4 min read
COVID’s Challenge and Corry’s Comeback
While all communities felt the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 60 U.S. communities implementing a large-scale population health initiative demonstrated resilience across many measures.
The city of Corry, Pennsylvania, offers an illustrative example. Highmark, AHN Saint Vincent, LECOM Health, Corry Memorial Hospital, and UPMC partnered with Erie County government and launched a community well-being partnership with Blue Zones Project by Sharecare (BZP) in 2019. Before anyone knew a once-in-a-century pandemic was about to change life in the U.S., the conditions for a living experiment in resilience were created.
Topics: Bulletin Corry
2 min read
The Well-Being Impacts of Poverty and Wealth
Poverty exacerbates sickness, and wealth protects well-being—two sides of the same coin viewed from opposite sides.
“
Association of Wealth with Longevity in U.S. Adults at Midlife” published last month in JAMA confirms higher net worth by midlife had significantly lower mortality risk over the subsequent 24 years.
Topics: Bulletin
2 min read
Adopting best practices from trusted sources can prevent unnecessary COVID-19 deaths
Learning from others is a fundamental strategy inculcated early in life and fundamental for survival. Oppositional behavior sometimes creeps in and can either be innovative, yielding new and better methods or counter-productive, creating distressful and worse outcomes. The evolutionary advantage is to differentiate quickly and follow the better path.
Topics: Bulletin
4 min read
Economic Security Underpins SDOH
Poverty, the bottom line or commonality among the social determinants of health (SDoH), was underscored last month in a
New England Journal of Medicine Perspective, “
Medical-Financial Partnerships—Beyond Traditional Boundaries.”
“Financial well-being, measured using various metrics, affects nearly every health indicator, from birth weight to longevity. Income is perhaps the most obvious financial metric linked to health. The richest 1% of people in the United States live 10 and 14 years longer (for women and men, respectively) than the poorest 1%.”
Topics: Bulletin
2 min read
Transferring hospital marketing dollars to prevention for long-term benefit
Does advertising by hospitals and healthcare systems have any relationship to quality? This question was answered in a
Journal of the American Medical Association article last month. The unsettling conclusion stated:
