By: Oklahoma Health and Wellness Summit
This past March, Oklahoma City brought some of the most influential voices in health and longevity into one room. The Oklahoma Health and Wellness Summit, held March 9 and 10 at The Skirvin Hotel, gathered physicians, researchers, innovators, and civic leaders for two days focused on preventive care, human performance, and the science of living longer and stronger.
Behind it is Gary Brooks, founder of the Healthy City Initiative. A commercial real estate developer for more than 35 years and the force behind The National, Tellers, and Stock & Bond, Brooks redirected his career toward health after heart surgery in 2019. His goal is simple and ambitious: help Oklahoma City become one of the healthiest metropolitan areas in the country.
The city consistently ranks near the bottom in national health surveys, and the state carries some of the highest rates of heart disease, hypertension, and obesity in the nation. Brooks treats those numbers not as a reason for discouragement but as the reason the work matters.
There is reason to believe a city can change its trajectory, because one already has. Fort Worth was once ranked 185th out of 190 metro areas on the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index, near the bottom of the country. Under the sustained leadership of Mayor Betsy Price, it climbed to 31st in a few short years, one of the most dramatic turnarounds the index has ever
recorded. Price now serves as an advisor to the Healthy City Initiative, which means Oklahoma City is not working from theory. It is learning directly from a mayor who has already done it. The Summit refused to treat health as a single subject. Longevity researchers Dr. Matt Kaeberlein and Dr. Brian Kennedy, who directs the Centre for Healthy Longevity at the National University of Singapore, walked through what science now understands about extending healthspan, the years a person stays strong and independent rather than simply alive. Cardiologist Dr. John Osborne made the case for catching heart disease risk early instead of waiting for an emergency. Dr. Tara Scott addressed hormone balance and whole person care, and speakers including Dr. Kevin White, Dr. Laura Miles, Dr. Kari Rayl, and Debbie Ozment brought the conversation into everyday practice. Running through all of it was a single idea: health is not one discipline done well. It is many connected systems, from metabolism to mindset, that either support each other or break down together.
That idea shaped how Brooks talks about the goal. “We want people to become conductors of their own health, not passive patients waiting for instructions,” says Brooks. “We are starting a conversation about how to live better, and we want to find the truth about what actually works. Our goal is to be a catalyst and a trusted voice in that conversation.”
If you missed it, you did not miss it. Every major session from the Summit is now available to watch online. More than two dozen talks, panels, and conversations are posted in full, which
means the science, the stories, and the practical guidance from those two days are open to anyone in Oklahoma City who wants them. The sessions span longevity and healthspan, cardiovascular risk, hormone and metabolic health, mental wellbeing, and the leadership habits that quietly shape how we live, the same threads that ran through the room in March.
The conversation also continues in a new place. Brooks is launching a podcast called Orchestrating Health, a name drawn straight from that idea of conducting your own care, where the questions raised at the Summit get explored in depth with the people working on the answers. Earlier conversations recorded through the Healthy City Initiative are available now, with the new series having launched in late summer.. Watch the Summit sessions and follow the new podcast as Oklahoma City sets out to become one of the healthiest cities in America.
Start at their Youtube channel and follow along here.
