Transcription:

Scott Webb: Blue Zones project is a community wellbeing improvement initiative, designed to change the way people experience the world around them. Today, we are catching up with Tiffany DiTullio of Blue Zones project to discuss the project and its mission and the recent expansion to South Monterey county. This is Ask the Experts, a podcast from Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. I'm Scott Webb. Tiffany, it's so great to speak with you. Again, we spoke a couple of years ago and today we're talking about the Blue Zones project and the expansion to South Monterey county. So before we get rolling here, tell us again about the Blue Zones project. What is it?

Tiffany DiTullio: Blue Zone's project simply stated is a community wellbeing improvement initiative, really designed to change the way people experience the world around them. Really looking to find ways to make the healthy choice, the easy choice, and because our environments naturally nudge us towards fast food, easy fixes, short walks. What Blue Zones project does is try to create an environment that nudges us towards the healthier choices, parking further away, making healthy choices, the easy choice, those types of things. So Blue Zones project really works in three specific areas.

We call it people, places, and policy. In the people category, we're really working with the community to identify opportunities, to illustrate show and encourage people to make healthy choices. Whether that's through community outreach, whether it's a community volunteer program, taking people on a hike or a walking Moi. When we work in places we're working with work sites and restaurants and grocery stores and schools really trying to create the environment that pushes people to make the healthy choice where they spend the majority of their time.

And then in policy, which I think is the part that really creates that sustainability in a community. We work with built environment, policy, food, policy, and tobacco policy to create a sustainable environment of wellbeing.

Scott Webb: So give us a little sense of the history. How, and when did the project come to Monterey County?

Tiffany DiTullio: Blue Zones project came to Monterey county by the invitation of Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System in August of 2018, essentially inviting Blue Zones to come and do. What's called a site assessment. To see if there is a level of readiness in our community to bring this type of a project. Blue Zones project is a we project. And what that means is it can't just be one person or one entity trying to make this happen in a community. It takes every single person to participate, to make it a successful sustainable change.

So after the site assessment, it was determined in October of 2018 that we would start this project in Salinas. So what originally was intended to be Blue Zone Project Salinas, through that site assessment enough community members were excited about this that it was decided it would be Blue Zones Project ,Monterey County. So while it started in 2019 with the official launch of the Salinas community, it was always intended that this project would be countywide at some point, through different phased rollouts.

Scott Webb: Yeah. So let's talk about the expansion as you say, that was always the intention. So now we've expanded to South Monterey County, so, which communities are affected, impacted will benefit from this?

Tiffany DiTullio: Great. So the Salinas project is actually in its fourth year. And then in 2021, after a subsequent site assessment, the project was expanded into peninsula cities, which is really defined as Monterey Marina and Seaside. And as well as a countywide approach. And then the final expansion was the result of that same site assessment, where we always knew that we would do the final expansion into King City in Gonzalez. So the King City in Gonzalez projects just wrapped up their six months of what we call discovery.

Or pLanning and transformation really working within that community to identify what are the needs and desires, what are those areas of opportunity and what does the community see as the most important part of sustainable change? So we wrapped that up in may of 2022. And in fact, just last weekend, we just did the kickoffs for both King City and Gonzalez.

Scott Webb: That's awesome. I wanna give you opportunity here to just sort of brag a little bit. Maybe it's not in your nature, but I'll have you brag a little bit. What has the Blue Zones project accomplished in Monterey county so far? And then let's talk about the future goals.

Tiffany DiTullio: There's been so much that's happened in Monterey County and it's really nice now to see how the momentum is catching, because when you have communities, which we would consider four communities, the four community projects. When you have them layered one on top of another, the momentum that's happening in Salinas is fueling the momentum that's happening in the peninsula and fueling the momentum that's happening in south county. So as of August, we've engaged over 20,000 community members. And what that means to us is that those people have participated in some level of the project.

Perhaps they've attended a cleanup, they've attended a purpose workshop, maybe through their work site. They are an approved organization. So 20,000 people is an impressive thing for us. We have over 37 Blue Zones, project approved work sites. And what that means for a work site is that they've adopted those best practices that really does create that sustainable environment of wellbeing for employees. We have 27 Blue Zones, project approved restaurants and for a restaurant, what that means is that they've looked at their menu and they've optimized and highlighted the healthy choices on their menu.

by offering, what would we would designate as a Blue Zones, inspired dish. We also have 24 Blue Zones, project approved schools, which again, is working with those students and families to optimize that school environment in hopes that those students are taking that information back to their families. We have over 15 participating organizations that can be anything from rotary clubs, to churches, to other member based organizations that are committed to participating with the Blue Zones project. And we have three approved grocery stores and for a grocery store that's really highlighting local produce.

Perhaps it's installing a healthy checkout lane featuring the healthy options as the easy options. And again, nudging people towards that healthier environment. I feel that when we look at communities, we see success when we've really optimized that life radius and the life radius is that 10 miles in which people live, work and play. So success would be. I go to work and I come home and I say at the dinner table, wow. It was really wonderful today at work, we did this Blue Zones Project lunch and learn, and my daughter says, oh, mom, that's great.

At school today, we did a Blue Zones Project purpose workshop, and then maybe we go to the grocery store and as we're checking out, there's a healthy checkout lane. That's a Blue Zones Project, healthy checkout lane. And then we go next door to our favorite restaurant and they have Blue Zones inspired. That's what a life radius is. It's really making sure that there's that continuity and that thread of healthy environment throughout a community.

Scott Webb: Yeah, definitely. I was thinking about just the area of Monterey County in general, and I know that it's so diverse languages and otherwise. So how do you deal with that? How do you deal with the diversity, making sure that you reach as many folks as possible and especially when it comes to the language barriers.

Tiffany DiTullio: Early on in our Salinas project, we saw an opportunity to pause, to ensure that every single thing that we did with Blue Zones Project was accessible and available to the community as a whole. We had to reevaluate reading levels. Spend a significant time identifying and translating all of the materials because Blue Zone's Project is part of a bigger community. At the time we were one of 46 projects. Now we are four of 72 project. So all of this material and really some great resources existed, but not all of them were bilingual.

So for us, especially in our community, it was incredibly important that we created a culturally relevant voice for our community so that people could actually see themselves reflected in the work that we were doing. We've also revised the way that we reach out and do our communication. , in working with schools, we have to really utilize. The tools that schools use, whether that's parent connect or parent view, how do they reach those families? Because giving something to a student doesn't always mean that it gets home to the parents.

But we also recently launched a pilot project collaborating with three community based organizations and,, working with community health workers to ensure that we're getting the. Out to all members of our community. And I would say that, that's probably been one of the more successful things that we've done.

Scott Webb: It's just so cool. And it's been great to catch up with you. Thanks so much. You stay well.

Tiffany DiTullio: Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Scott Webb: And for more information on the blue zones project, visit bluezonesproject.com/montereycounty. And if you found this podcast to be helpful, please be sure to tell a friend, neighbor or family member and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and check out the entire podcast library for additional topics of interest. This is Ask the Experts from Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well, and we'll talk again next time.