Functie:
Emeritus Hoogleraar & Senior Onderzoeker
Organisatie:
Katholieke Universiteit van Leuven & Universiteit van Tallinn
Functie:
Emeritus Hoogleraar & Senior Onderzoeker
Organisatie:
Katholieke Universiteit van Leuven & Universiteit van Tallinn
Michel Poulain was originally skilled in astrophysics at University of Liège (Belgium), he received a PhD in demography at UCLouvain (Belgium). As demographer, he is specialized in Longevity studies. Currently emeritus professor at UCLouvain, he is also Senior Researcher at the Estonian Institute for Population Studies at Tallinn University (Estonia). He has been President of the Société Belge de Démographie (1984-1990) and later of the Association Internationale des Démographes de Langue Française (AIDELF) (1988-2000). Involved in centenarian’s studies since 1992 he is active member of the International Database on Longevity (IDL) and the International Centenarian Consortium (ICC). In 2000, he was involved in validation the age of the numerous centenarians in Sardinia and introduced the concept of Longevity Blue Zone as area where the population experiences an exceptional longevity and includes a large number of centenarians. So far, he identified 5 Blue Zones: Ogliastra in Sardinia, Okinawa in Japan, Nicoya in Costa Rica, Ikaria in Greece and more recently Martinique, the French Oversea Department.