Landscapes of longevity, healthy aging across the world

2014-10-01

University of Virginia. School of Medicine

In summer 2013, UVA landscape architecture graduate students Harriett Jameson and Asa Eslocker travelled to Sardinia, Okinawa, and Loma Linda, California, three landscapes with the highest life expectancy in the world, to explore these places' physical, spatial, and material qualities-topography, plant communitites,urban form-and also the personal attachments that seniors in these sites have to their cultural landscapes. The people in these locales have long been studied for their genetics, diets, and recreation habits. But until Ms. Jameson and Mr. Eslocker arrived, no one had inquired into or demonstrated in these settings the critical role of place in healthy longevity. Through study of these distinctive landscapes and the personal stories of elderly residents, the pair arrived at insights that may help communities rethink and redesign public landscapes to cultivate a culture of health and well being that spans infancy through old age. 

In this Medical center hour, Ms. Jameson and Mr. Eslocker focus on how place contributes to healthy aging and preview parts of their full-length documentary film, Landscapes of longevity, which will premiere in Charlottesville in November.

A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
Co-presented with the Center for Design + Health, School of Architecture, UVA

Jameson, Harriet (Speaker); Eslocker, Asa (Speaker); Childress, Marcia Day (Moderator); University of Virginia. School of Medicine

Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

Filmed lectures

Life Expectancy; Longevity; Topography, Medical

Medical Center Hour

Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

English

The speakers in this presentation have given the University of Virginia permission to make it freely accessible online for all audiences to view. To request permission to reproduce, republish, and/or repost this presentation please contact the Historical Collections and Services Department of the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library at the University of Virginia.

1 online resource (1 video file, 61:07 min.) : sound, color

Local Identifier: u6567537