Public Health Moment

Albert Lea, Minnesota is the center of an innovative, ten-month pilot project designed to improve the health and life expectancy of people who live and work there.

It's called the AARP Blue Zones Vitality Project.

Leslie Lytle, a University of Minnesota epidemiology professor, is co-director of the project.

She says that instead of focusing on diet and exercise, the project encourages the best practices of the world's longest-lived populations with strategies such as making it easier to get around on and encouraging the development of social networks.

Listen to Lytle on Public Health Moment

Posted by Mark Engebretson at 11:17 AM
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Smoking bans do not cause economic harm to bars and restaurants. That's according to a study led by epidemiologist Jean Forster from the University of Minnesota.

Forster and colleagues used state-mandated reporting data from 10 Minnesota cities for the years 2003 to 2006. That was before the introduction of a statewide smoking ban, but at a time when a number of local cities had adopted their own full or partial bans.

Forster says that smoking bans are an effective way to protect people--especially bar and restaurant employees--from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke.

• Listen to Forster on Public Health Moment

Posted by Mark Engebretson at 3:11 PM
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