Everyone is invited to attend the free Feast for Your Brain healthy aging event that will feature performances, presentations, music, health services, games, mind-body exercises, and food. The event is organized to bring the community together and increase awareness about healthy aging practices as part of the Precision Aging Network, a project dedicated to improving the health of the aging brain.

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Everyone is invited to attend the free Feast for Your Brain healthy aging event that features performances, presentations, music, health services (including flu and COVID vaccinations), games, mind-body exercises, food, and a raffle for prizes. It will be fun for families, seniors, students, and guests of all ages! This year’s third annual event has a new location at the El Rio Neighborhood Center in Tucson’s Barrio Hollywood.

The Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health organizes the annual Feast for Your Brain event to bring the community together and increase awareness about healthy aging practices as part of the Precision Aging Network (PAN), a project dedicated to improving the health of the aging brain. The festivities will take place on Saturday, October 19, 10am to 3pm, at the El Rio Neighborhood Center, located at 1390 W Speedway Blvd., west of Interstate 10 next to the El Rio Golf Course. Free parking will be available.

Dr. Tomás Nuño, Assistant Research Professor in the College of Public Health, is one of the leading organizers of the event and guided the collaboration with El Rio Health. "Feast for Your Brain is such a fun and educational event for the whole family,” said Dr. Nuño, “From ballet folclórico performances to tai chi sessions, and the music and health services. This event really brings the community together and I’m so grateful to all our community partners who join us to promote healthy aging!”

Focused on healthy aging practices, the event brings together healthy aging experts from across the University of Arizona Health Sciences, alongside community partners and health services providers, for a fun and informative day of connection. In particular, the event supports the Precision Aging Network, a program funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and empowered by the MindCrowd brain research project. In 2021, the University of Arizona was awarded a large grant to launch and lead the PAN project. Dr. Carol Barnes, the lead researcher for PAN, will join us in-person to give a keynote presentation to teach about the importance of PAN’s brain research.

Zhao Chen, PhD, MPH, Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health (MEZCOPH), leads the community engagement, recruitment, and retention effort for the Precision Aging Network in Arizona and across study sites in the United States.

“Feast for Your Brain creates a great opportunity for our community members and university researchers to meet each other so we can work together towards our shared goals of promoting healthy brains and a healthy community,” says Dr. Chen. “We are thrilled to be able to bring this annual event to the El Rio Neighborhood Center this year where we will be more immersed in the local community and increase the diversity of our participants.”

This will be the third annual Feast for Your Brain gathering, following the successful previous events that welcomed more than 500 participants, young and old, who enjoyed performances, presentations, and mind-body exercises. Take a look at last year’s event images and read highlights in this recap story.

At the event, older adults and their families can learn about healthy aging while participating in activities, and they can hear about the most up-to-date research. Graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to join the event. They’ll be able to sign up for internships, gain experiential learning credits, and join the PAN student ambassador program for healthy aging and population health research.

A national scale research network established with funding from the NIH’s National Institutes on Aging, PAN was created to develop innovative community-engaged brain aging research that will help to close the gap between lifespan and brain-health span. With multiple partners and study sites, including UArizona, ASU, University of Miami, Emory University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (T-GEN), the PAN project brings a new scale to brain research across geographic regions and diverse communities.

Our Community Partners

We are grateful for our University of Arizona and community partners who will join us for this event, including:

We encourage everyone in our community to join us in October! For more information contact Carolina Carrasco, carolinacarrasco@arizona.edu, at the University of Arizona.

Event Details

Download the Event Flyer