DECEMBER NEWS

MICHIGAN RURAL FOOD RETAIL REPORT RELEASED

Along with colleagues at Michigan State University, Chris Bardenhagen and Rich Pirog, Research Scientist Courtney Pinard has released a report looking at rural retail in Northeast Michigan - and opportunities for improving healthy food access.

Their work hopes to inform future financial investments by the Michigan Good Food Fund, which aims to expand access to healthy food for Michigan residents in underserved rural and urban areas by providing loans and business assistance to food businesses to increase their capacity to supply good food. The Michigan Good Food Charter characterizes “good food” as food that is healthy, affordable, fair and green for all Michiganders. Unlike healthy food financing initiatives in other states, the Michigan Good Food Fund will provide assistance to food businesses across the food value chain; production, processing, aggregation/distribution and retail businesses are all eligible.

This assessment was a collaborative project between the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition and the Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems. The purpose of this work was to characterize the food retail environment in a 15-county region of northeast Michigan to inform business assistance and loan pipeline strategies through the Michigan Good Food Fund in this part of the state. This information can be used to inform future food access work in northeast Michigan by describing current challenges and practices and highlighting areas of opportunity.

The developed map highlights areas that are low-food access and low income and in which the availability of food retail outlets is limited. Small stores in these rural areas may be prime businesses for investment, allowing the stores to expand their ability to offer more healthful products. In particular, small independent grocers and corner stores in small towns across the region studied may benefit from investments that expand the store owners’ ability to source, store and sell more local and fresh products. The study was funded in part by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Pinard and her MSU colleagues presented a webinar (archived here) on November 24, and will present a second webinar, “Shared Measurement Training: An Overview of the Research Process” today at 3 p.m. Eastern.

BOARD MEMBER FEATURE:  Lisa Laday-Davis

A native of Lafayette, La., Lisa Laday-Davis graduated from Louisiana State University with a bachelor’s of science in accounting. Although a Certified Public Accountant by trade, her work is focused on the insurance and risk management industry as the owner of Davis Insurance Agency in Omaha. The causes and community engagement she most enjoys is working with is youth development and underserved communities. She is a former United Way board member and a current board member of the Teammates Mentoring program. When invited to the Center’s board, she said she was most impressed by the work that was being done that centered around the reversal of the childhood obesity trend and bringing more awareness to food insecurity. At that time, Dr. Amy Yaroch had recently taken the helm as executive director, and Davis said she was excited about the passion and expertise that Yaroch brought to the organization that would help the organization broaden its reach in a more impactful direction.
 
 
GSCN: Have there been any “pivotal moments” you’ve witnessed since first joining the board?
Going through the strategic planning process where we focused on the best way to become more impactful and clear in our mission and honed in on the best way to convey our message to the larger community. This was pivotal because it will provide the road map for how the Center can best play a role in the larger issue at hand of nutrition. With today’s children likely becoming the first generation with a lower life expectancy than past generations, it is key that we have organizations with missions like the Center bringing awareness and research-based solutions to help combat this issue. What we do will influence future policy making and family education and will lead to better decision making and healthier families.
 
GSCN: What is your favorite part of serving on the Center’s board?
My favorite part is the collaboration and effort that goes into working with the Center to help bring change and awareness to this global issue. We have members of the board from all over the greater Omaha area with different backgrounds and levels of expertise. What is great is that we all come with a different perspective on the issues we are working to resolve, and once we bring all of these together we generally end up with solutions that are more impactful and effective than any one individual could have developed.
 
GSCN: Have you personally changed anything in your life based on what you have learned through the Center’s work?
As with most things, generally when you know better, you do better. With the Center’s focus on childhood obesity and access to local healthy foods, I have become more aware and appreciative of my own access to local healthier options. It is something I have learned to incorporate into my kids’ diets and meal planning. With three kids and working full time, meal planning can be a bit of a challenge, but when you work with an organization that highlights the long-term effects of that everyday decision making, it definitely makes you more conscientious in the choices you make for your family and how you educate them to make their own choices. Also, since I have been engaged with the Center, I have a daughter who has adopted a vegetarian diet, which makes education and awareness even more essential to daily planning. I now have open discussions with my kids about food choices and fast food, and help them make their own choices.
 
GSCN: What is a favorite food memory for you?
Coming from a city known nationally for its spicy Cajun/Creole cuisine, I have lots of great food memories. A culture with great African, French, Spanish and Native American influences offers a great variety in food choices. However, my best memories come from the festivals and family gatherings that are a key part of where I am from. Family gatherings often centered around food. Crawfish boils were always my favorite because it involved a large gathering of family, outdoor fun and great food.


 

SERVICES FEATURE:
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

This is the second story in a series of features about the wide variety of services we offer our partners.
 
PARTNER: Public Health Solutions, a district health department
PROJECT: Farmers Market Survey
SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE CENTER: survey design, technical assistance with survey administration, data analysis, data interpretation, report writing
 
Public Health Solutions (PHS), a local health department based in Crete, Neb., that serves Fillmore, Gage, Jefferson, Saline and Thayer counties hired the Center to create a survey to assess their farmers markets. They wanted to capture information about consumers’ shopping behaviors, as well as their attitudes and perceptions of the markets, in order to identify potential areas of need for improvement. 
 
Survey development typically follows a four-step process with our partners: 1) instrument design, 2) data collection, 3) data analysis and 4) data interpretation (reporting). Center-led completion of all four steps is ideal, but when appropriate, pieces of this process are executed by our partners. In this case, PHS conducted data collection, with technical assistance (TA) provided by the Center as needed.
 
Initially, Associate Director Leah Carpenter and Postdoctoral Fellow Teresa Smith met with leaders at PHS and their farmers market coalition to gather historical information about their markets and identify needs and goals for the survey project. From this information, Project Manager Hollyanne Fricke led the development of survey questions for consumers that would most effectively reveal desired information in a way that could be statistically analyzed.
 
PHS administered the survey to approximately 90 respondents at nine different area farmers markets, as well as at other key community locations, over the course of an eight-week period.

Survey results revealed that although most customers were satisfied overall with their experience shopping at area farmers markets, there were areas in which the markets could improve. Our report, available here, outlined three major recommendations for PHS moving forward: (a) increased marketing around times, dates and locations of farmers markets to improve customer awareness and market traffic; (b) creation of a feedback loop with market vendors, to better align customers' needs and interests to products being offered and (c) continued assessment and evaluation of farmers markets, such as additional surveys to assess whether behaviors, attitudes and perceptions have changed over time, as well as qualitative interviews to compliment the quantitative component.
 

YAROCH NAMED ASSOCIATE EDITOR

This month, Amy Yaroch, PhD, begins a term as associate editor of Translational Behavioral Medicine. It is one of two journals published by the Society of Behavioral Medicine; the second is the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.


 

FEASIBILITY STUDY CONDUCTED IN COLORADO

Earlier this year, Center staff members conducted a plate waste feasibility study in one Colorado school district as part of the LiveWell@School Food Initiative evaluation contract. The goal of this feasibility study was to develop the necessary protocol and associated tools and templates to conduct a full plate waste study in the next year of the evaluation with multiple districts and/or across multiple days.

Through a menu analysis activity, it was discovered that scratch cooking is increasing in these districts, however, a plate waste study is necessary to gather individual level data on student consumption. Using a method called visual estimation, data was collected over a three-day period, and a protocol was written for each step of the process from recruitment of the school district to analysis of the data.

Research Associate Brittany Schwartz completed additional work on this project as part of her Service Learning/Capstone Experience at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Public Health. On December 7, Schwartz successfully presented her work and will be graduating later this month.


 

TRAVELS

Research Scientist Courtney Pinard is attending the Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health on December 14 and 15 in Washington D.C. She will be making two presentations – “Novel measurement of hunger-coping behaviors to enhance a multipronged community-based intervention” and “The rural food environment: Translation and adaptation of best practices to improve healthy food access.”


 

PUBLICATION

Smith, Teresa, Uriyoán Colón-Ramos, Courtney A. Pinard, and Amy L. Yaroch. “Household Food Insecurity as a Determinant of Overweight and Obesity among Low-Income Hispanic Subgroups: Data from the 2011-2012 California Health Interview Survey.” Appetite, November 2015. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2015.11.009.


 

The Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition aids in survey development and evaluation for national organizations and others. If you are interested in finding out more about these services, please contact Dr. Amy Yaroch, executive director, at ayaroch@centerfornutrition.org.