Our Research
Our research team uses a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to address child health disparities, particularly obesity, for low-income and minority communities. The majority of our research focuses on informing and evaluating policies and interventions that encourage children and families to drink water instead of sugar-sweetened beverages, a key contributor to obesity, dental caries, and other chronic diseases. A second major focus is in working with communities to promote nutrition security.
We have had the privilege of working with partners including community-based organizations, public agencies, child-care facilities and schools on research. Our inter-disciplinary collaborators come from the fields of education, engineering, law, nutrition, health policy, and public health.
Conducting research with community partners has allowed us to inform nutrition policies and has led to the development of a number of creative products to disseminate evidence so that it is translated into practice in communities. Example products include toolkits for promoting water consumption in schools and multi-lingual educational videos tailored for teachers, parents, and young children.