Blue Shield of California First Health Plan to Offer Innovative Blue Zones Challenge™ App to Members

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Blue Zones offerings help members live longer and happier through Blue Shield's award-winning Wellvolution platform, improving health outcomes for members with holistic care solutions.

OAKLAND, Calif., July 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Shield of California members now have access to the Blue Zones Challenge™ app, a first-of-its-kind program offered by a health plan to help its customers emulate sustainable, holistic lifestyle habits of people in the blue zones regions around the world that live longer, healthier, and happier lives. These regions were identified by Blue Zones founder, Dan Buettner, who has spent over 25 years researching the cultures of the world's longest living populations.

Popularized in the Emmy Award-winning Netflix docuseries "Live to 100: Secrets of Blue Zones", Blue Zones principles focus on goals including daily movement, socialization, and thoughtful food choices inspired by the daily habits of people living in blue zones regions.

The app is now available to Blue Shield members following a successful pilot program where 99% of the more than 1,000 participants self-reported improvement in their well-being.

Blue Shield members can access the app through the nonprofit health plan's digital lifestyle medicine platform, Wellvolution, at no additional cost. For the last five years, Wellvolution has offered a suite of programs that address mental health, diabetes, hypertension, weight management, musculoskeletal health, and tobacco cessation. The addition of the Blue Zones Challenge app creates a new category of program focused on improving whole-person health and longevity, rather than a solution to address a specific chronic condition.

"With the Blue Zones Challenge app, members can not only build sustainable habits relating to healthy eating and natural movement, but also build personal connections and community," said Angie Kalousek Ebrahimi, senior director of Lifestyle Medicine, Blue Shield of California. "We are in the midst of a nationwide loneliness crisis, which impacts both the mind and the body, so we are thrilled to provide a solution that emphasizes healthy living, including community building."

Upon downloading the Blue Zones Challenge app, Blue Shield members will complete assessments regarding longevity, happiness, nutrition and purpose, set up their surroundings to aid in seamless healthy habits, and write their personal purpose statement. From there, members will track Blue Zones activities daily – examples include eating a cup of beans, going on a walk, and spending 30 minutes on a hobby. Each completed activity has a point value, with the goal of hitting 400 points per week. The app encourages activity outside of the phone screen – improving social connections and one's surroundings by completing these simple tasks.

"The Blue Zones Challenge app is evidence-based and science backed," said Ben Leedle, chief executive officer of Blue Zones. "By working with Blue Shield of California to offer the app to members at no additional cost, we can help Californians build community and live happier, healthier, and less stressed lives through simple changes to their lifestyle and diet habits."

Members can go to Wellvolution.com/BlueZones to sign in or create a new account to get started with The Blue Zones Challenge app, which is currently available to all fully insured individual and family plan members, as well as Administrative Services Only (ASO) groups who buy Wellvolution.

About Blue Shield of California
Blue Shield of California strives to create a healthcare system worthy of its family and friends that is sustainably affordable. The health plan is a tax paying, nonprofit, independent member of the Blue Shield Association with more than 4.8 million members, over 7,100 employees and more than $25 billion in annual revenue. Founded in 1939 in San Francisco and now headquartered in Oakland, Blue Shield of California and its affiliates provide health, dental, vision, Medicaid and Medicare healthcare service plans in California. The company has contributed more than $77 million to the Blue Shield of California Foundation in the last three years to have an impact on California communities.

For more news about Blue Shield of California, please visit news.blueshieldca.com. 

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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, Blue Zones Kitchen, and The Blue Zones Challenge—all published by National Geographic books. An Emmy Award-winning 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.

SOURCE Blue Shield of California