As flu outbreaks increase, why are people getting vaccinated at lower rates, seemingly against their self-interest? A Cornell University psychology professor argues in new research that scholars of rational decision-making and many public health professionals have misunderstood how people make such decisions: based less on raw facts than intuition about them, and how that “gist” aligns with their core values.

A new peer-reviewed paper published in The Gerontologist  provides the most comprehensive scientific response to date addressing recent critiques of the so-called “blue zones,” regions of the world known for unusually high concentrations of people living long, healthy lives. In the article, “The validity of blue zones demography: a response to critiques,” authors Steven N. Austad, PhD (Scientific Director, American Federation for Aging Research/AFAR and Distinguished Professor, Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham) and Giovanni M. Pes, MD (Professor of Medicine at the University of Sassari) detail decades of demographic research showing that ages in the original blue zones have been rigorously validated using the highest standards of modern gerontological demography.