Abstract
Each year, more than 300,000 American students have an international experience to earn academic credit on a variety of programs ranging from two weeks to a full academic year. Education Abroad (EA) enables students to “experience new perspectives, learn how to navigate different cultures, work with diverse peers, and communicate in other languages” [1]. In nursing, studying abroad has been shown to help with cultural awareness, personal growth, cultural immersion, and networking. EA opportunities help nursing students to gain “diverse cultural perspectives, as well as global competence” [2] in a world where they will be providing care for an increasingly diverse population. At a mid-size university in the American South, an associate professor in nursing who has previous EA experience, became interested in a health-related concept known as the Blue Zones, described below. She realized that this particular research area of interest could be applied to an opportunity for a health-related study abroad program for nursing students and other college students interested in the concept. In this article, the authors will describe the concept of Blue Zones, how an EA program focusing on the concept was developed, what was involved in the course connected with the program, and details of the experience.
Highlights
Each year, more than 300,000 American students have an international experience to earn academic credit on a variety of programs ranging from two weeks to a full academic year
The authors will describe the concept of Blue Zones, how an Education Abroad (EA) program focusing on the concept was developed, what was involved in the course connected with the program, and details of the experience
The regions of Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Ikaria, Greece were studied in great detail by Dan Beuttner and National Geographic, following up on research by Poulain et al [4], to determine why and how people living in these zones were able to live longer and healthier than those in other areas of the world
Summary
There are five areas of the world, known as Blue Zones, where the largest numbers of centenarians, or people living greater than 100 years, reside. (The current average life expectancy of people in the United States is 78.9 years) [3]. There are five areas of the world, known as Blue Zones, where the largest numbers of centenarians, or people living greater than 100 years, reside. The regions of Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Ikaria, Greece were studied in great detail by Dan Beuttner and National Geographic, following up on research by Poulain et al [4], to determine why and how people living in these zones were able to live longer and healthier than those in other areas of the world. Nine similarities, dubbed the Power 9, were found among the Blue Zones including moving naturally, knowing one’s purpose, down shifting one’s life, surrounding oneself with a tribe of people, belonging to a religious group, putting one’s family first, having a glass of red wine at least once per day, including larger portions of vegetables, and eating only until 80 percent full [5]
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