Lifestyle Changes Can Add Years to Life and Life to Years

Multiple lifestyle factors can either compromise or contribute to healthier aging. Sub-optimal nutrition, physical inactivity, excessive alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, inadequate sleep, social isolation/loneliness, and excessive stress are factors that often compromise health. In this presentation, learn more about the research on each of these factors, discuss positive behavioral strategies and recommended resources to help you.

About Dr. Gary A. Giovino
Dr. Gary A. Giovino, PhD ’87, MS ’79, is an epidemiologist who focuses mainly on behavioral issues.  He is a SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus, having recently retired from the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior of the UB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions.  His research interests include patterns, determinants, consequences, and control of tobacco use; which are part of a more general focus on disease prevention and health promotion.  His presentation on Lifestyle and Healthier Aging is based on his work on disease prevention and health promotion. 

Dr. Giovino is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Innovators Combating Substance Abuse Award from RWJF, Doll/Wynder Award for research in tobacco epidemiology from the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, CDC’s Charles C. Shepard Science Award for Outstanding Scientific Contribution to Public Health, the Joseph W. Cullen Memorial Award from the American Society of Preventive Oncology, and the Craig Ryder Memorial Award from the New York State Department of Health. He is a Fellow of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.

Many of the lessons he learned from his study of and research on the tobacco epidemic have contributed to his thinking on other lifestyle factors that influence health. Lifestyle changes can (quoting David Katz) “add years to life and life to years.”