Backed by rigorously validated data and a world-class scientific team, new Blue Zones Research Institute launches

First-of-its-kind initiative steered by American Federation for Aging Research will help advance study of behaviorial, environmental, and biological drivers of aging and healthspan

American Federation for Aging Research

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NEW YORK, October 13, 2026 – The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), in partnership with Blue Zones, today launched the Blue Zones Research Institute (BZRI). 

The Institute will advance the scientific study of human healthspan and lifespan extension by supporting new research on long-lived human populations across the globe. The Institute will begin by making publicly available, for free, demographic data on Blue Zones that have already been validated — additional data on other long-lived populations will be made available on an ongoing basis as the research rolls out and new data are collected.   

The new scientific center will:

• Fund ongoing scientific research on the world’s longest-lived communities,
• Become the central repository for all existing and new data and evidence from Blue Zones and other long-lived populations,
• Foster partnerships and lead initiatives to enhance our understanding of exceptional human longevity and healthspan, and
• Make the data freely available to scientists and non-scientists alike.

The first initiative announced by BZRI is a partnership with the Human Mortality Database (HMD), the field’s most-trusted source for global mortality data, maintained by the University of California, Berkeley, the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, and France’s National Institute for Demographic Studies. This new database, coined HMD-Blue, will build out a dedicated collection of rigorously validated data on long-lived populations and be housed within HMD. 

“Until now, there has been no single place to find verified demographic data devoted exclusively to exceptional human longevity. HMD-Blue is being designed to become a primary source of it, held to the standard demographers already trust, and open to anyone who wants to check the work,” said S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, Professor Emeritus, School of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Chair of the BZRI Advisory Committee. “The Blue Zones Research Institute will serve as a foundation for other projects and research like this, furthering our understanding and increasing collaboration around the science of aging.”

The launch follows a study published on October 5 in Frontiers in Aging that identified Bolotana, a mountain village in central Sardinia, as a candidate blue zone. The study was led by Giovanni Mario Pes, MD, PhD, of the University of Sassari and co-authored by AFAR researchers Olshansky and Steven N. Austad, PhD, and Blue Zones founder Dan Buettner and other local scientists from Sardinia. The team verified the ages of every identified centenarian using civil birth records and independently cross-checked 97% of recorded centenarian deaths against parish archives. The findings strengthen the demographic evidence for exceptional longevity while opening new questions about its causes.

The study also showed that from 2021 to 2025, women in Bolotana who reached 70 were more than three times as likely as American women to reach 100 and are among the longest-lived women recorded anywhere. This research from Bolotana will be the first data set in HMD-Blue and serves as a strong foundation upon which to add data from other long-lived populations.

“I’ve spent my career studying creatures that age unusually slowly, from island opossums to clams that live for centuries. The most intriguing case may be our own species, in a handful of villages where reaching 100 is remarkably common,” said Steven N. Austad, PhD, Scientific Director of AFAR. “For a scientist, it doesn’t get much more exciting than that, and the Blue Zones Research Institute will help support the already growing scientific community in this space as we continue exploring how to live longer, fuller lives.” 

BZRI rests on a simple thesis: healthy aging to extreme ages depends on better understanding of the various behavioral, environmental, and genetic forces at work. The Institute pairs 45 years of AFAR-supported aging research with two decades of Blue Zones fieldwork in the world’s longest-lived communities. AFAR will administer the Institute and award all of its research grants using established internal and external review protocols, starting with a first launch award cycle of $85,000.

Beyond HMD-Blue and mortality data, BZRI will aim to fund research into why these communities live longer, including investigations into communities with record numbers of centenarians and unusually long survival attributes at extreme ages, and why many of those added years are healthy ones. Studies of genetics, behavioral risk factors, and patterns of physical activity among the long-lived will be part of the BZRI research portfolio, complementing existing research studies on long-lived communities, such as AFAR’s SuperAgers Family Study, which aims to uncover the biological factors contributing to healthy aging and exceptional longevity among individuals 95+ and their families.

The economic stakes are high. Given that one year of healthy life has been estimated to hold a value of $38 trillion, the economic value of figuring out how to close the healthy longevity gap between the US and Bolotana is well worth the investment. 

BZRI will welcome research and researchers across this field of study, not only from Blue Zones. BZRI recognizes that not everyone will age exceptionally but everyone can age more healthfully and will also prioritize the implications for today’s younger people, who stand to gain the most from longer, healthier lives and healthier, fiscally sustainable societies as a whole.

“After twenty years of learning from these exceptional places, I know there is still much more to learn about why nonagenarians and centenarians live so long,” said Buettner. “By bringing together the best of our learnings from Blue Zones research with AFAR, which has supported the best researchers in the science of aging in the world, we are going to unlock a whole new level of knowledge and know-how about living healthier, longer lives.”  

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About AFAR - The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) is a national non-profit organization that supports and advances pioneering biomedical research that is revolutionizing how we live healthier and longer. For nearly half a century, AFAR has served as the field’s talent incubator, providing nearly $232,000,000 to close to 4,600 investigators at premier research institutions to date — and growing. In 2026, AFAR expects to provide approximately $6,522,000 to 56 investigators through a range of programs. A trusted leader and strategist, AFAR also works with public and private funders to steer high-quality grant programs and interdisciplinary research networks. AFAR-funded researchers are finding that modifying basic cellular processes can delay — or even prevent — many chronic diseases, often at the same time. They are discovering that it is never too late — or too early — to improve health. This groundbreaking science is paving the way for innovative new therapies that promise to improve and extend our quality of life—at any age. Learn more at www.afar.org.

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 including The Blue Zones Solution, The Blue Zones of Happiness, Blue Zones Kitchen, Blue Zones Challenge, and Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer — all published by National Geographic books. A hit 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, counties, and organizations 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. For more information, visit www.bluezones.com.