Board Member Profile: Tim Burke
President and CEO of Omaha Public Power District, Tim Burke has been with OPPD for 19 years. Burke joined the Center board in 2009. Married to his wife, Terri, for almost 34 years, the couple has three grown sons who are married, one grandchild and one on the way. They enjoy traveling to see their son in Boston, as well as to Jamaica or other warm ocean spots, and look forward to traveling to Phoenix this year to see the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals play in spring training. Burke and his wife play co-ed volleyball, enjoy pool activities and other sport-like activities, as well as playing their favorite card game - pitch.
GSCN: How does the Center differ from other Omaha-based nonprofits in which you are involved?
The Center differs because the majority of their energy, knowledge and resources are in supporting and evaluating other peoples’ nutrition and health delivery projects throughout the United States, where most nonprofits in Omaha are direct deliverers of services that they raise financial resources to support.
GSCN: What have you learned while sitting on the Center’s board?
Obviously health and healthy activity research and evaluations are the foundation of the Center, but what has really impressed me is the diversity of initiatives that the Center has been involved in, and the nationally recognized expertise that we have at the Center.
GSCN: What do you most enjoy about sitting on the board?
I get to serve on the board with people who I do not typically get to interact with and are as diverse as the projects and initiatives that the Center gets involved in. I completely believe that the work of the Center is going to change the lives of infants, children, as well as young and older adults. Additionally, this is a nationally recognized provider of those critical research and evaluation services. That’s cool to be associated with!
GSCN: What do you see as the Center’s greatest opportunity over the next five to 10 years?
The greatest opportunity for the Center is to identify the “best in class” nutrition and health programs throughout the United States and find partners to deliver those well researched and proven programs to change lives.
GSCN: What is a favorite food memory for you?
My grandmother’s seven-layered snacks. No one really has mastered the recipe because she was a “pinch” of this and a “handful” of that person, so it just doesn’t taste the same. Plus, I’m confident that she (my grandmother) used real lard. But it tasted so good!
|
|
Center Staff Develop Tools for
Technical Assistance and Data Collection
Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition staff spent several months developing a digital and mobile form for the iPad mini™ using the FileMaker Go® app. The app is being used to transform traditional, paper-based technical assistance (TA) monitoring into a revolutionized digital experience.
FileMaker® Pro, a Mac-based database manager, and its accompanying app, FileMaker Go®, are helpful in TA as they help reduce the amount of time spent filling out observation forms, do not require paper and filing, and provide easy snapshots to review recorded data.
iPad mini™’s loaded with the FileMaker Go® app and audience and project-specific TA forms are then sent to TA providers. Identification numbers, program names and other information are loaded into the electronic form as dropdowns, making selection easy and up-to-date for TA providers and program participants. The dropdowns are controlled remotely by Center staff who update program or enrollment information weekly.
Project coordinators and TA providers can also view “snapshots” of interactions, such as number of interviews, hours of TA, hours of travel and content areas addressed. This gives project coordinators the ability to see an overview of TA provided and, in return, give TA providers feedback for more effective TA interactions.
TA providers have responded positively to this type of electronic monitoring as it is a viable solution to several inefficiencies related to paper files. For example, the app allows various observation and monitoring forms to be filled out in real time, immediately following the observations. Data is sent to the Center’s data collectors for analysis via an email link, which is built into the survey. Open-ended questions are easily completed with unlimited space for comments and the option to use the “voice to text” feature to convert recorded voice into text.
Not only is this easier for TA providers, but also for data collectors, as they are no longer required to decipher illegible handwriting or fax-machine distortions. FileMaker® also allows relevant data points to be formatted into an excel spreadsheet, which eliminates many consequent steps of survey and data entry and potential human input errors.
Although this app was first utilized for a specific project, it is being tailored and used for TA observation and field survey collection on other projects here at the Center.
|
|
Center to Evaluate LPS Farm-to-School Program
The Center will be working with Jessie Coffey, RD, LMNT, nutrition and special diet specialist, Lincoln Public Schools, to evaluate the school district’s Farm-to-School planning program. Farm to School connects schools with local farms with the ultimate goal of providing healthier meals in K-12 schools and supporting local and regional farmers and ranchers in the process.
This project consists of five pilot schools in the Lincoln Public Schools district that offer early child care programs but do not participate in the normal lunch period. Instead, they offer their own food programs. Plan objectives are to gain commitments from identified producer partners over much of the next school year in order to increase procurement of local and regional foods by 25%; increase awareness of food production with a long-term goal to implement a full-scale food production unit within early childhood curriculum across the district by the 2017-2018 school year; and coordinate nutrition education around USDA Farm-to-School topics in early childhood classrooms.
The planning grant, funded by the USDA, is a small grant to gather pilot data in hopes of applying for a larger grant that would fund the continuation and implementation of the program across the district. The goal of this effort is to reinforce cafeteria Farm-to-School practices that focus on seasonal produce, lessons including cooking in the classroom, and garden-enhanced nutrition education.
The Center’s evaluation of this project will include design and implementation of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies including: 1) an electronic and/or paper survey from validated tools and scales will measure child awareness/perception of new menu items, 2) interview guides for teachers will measure classroom implementation/curriculum integration feasibility, 3) intercept interview guides will be used with parents to measure awareness/perception of new menu items, and 4) tracking mechanisms will be put in place for producer participation and menu implementation.
The new menu plan will be available in May, and the Center will talk to food service providers about the progress of food procurement, including successes and barriers. In addition, Center staff will conduct data collection training in Lincoln, covering recruitment logistics, survey administration, intercept interviewing and data coordination. The Center will collect data in August or September and provide a report at the project’s conclusion in March 2017.
Center staff first collaborated with Coffey on an evaluation of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services’ Snack&Go effort in 2014. The goal of that project was to assist corner and convenience stores in providing and marketing healthy snacks to shoppers.
|
|
NCCOR Releases Catalogue of Surveillance
The National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) has released its updated Catalogue of Surveillance Systems.
Dr. Amy Yaroch, Center executive director, is a consultant with the NCCOR coordinating center, FHI 360. FHI 360 coordinates the partners and activities for the NCCOR collaborative.
NCCOR's Catalogue of Surveillance Systems is a free, online resource that connects childhood obesity researchers to more than 100 publicly available datasets. The recently updated catalogue streamlines the process of finding needed datasets, expands researchers’ options, and saves time.
Designed by and for childhood obesity researchers, the catalogue allows researchers to easily identify data resources related to childhood obesity, compare attributes across systems, and link to other resources of interest.
NCCOR offers a suite of tools to help researchers work more efficiently and effectively, including the Measures Registry and Registry of Studies. The Measures Registry is a searchable database of more than 1,000 diet and physical activity measures relevant to childhood obesity research. The Registry of Studies is a searchable database of community-based studies assessing known factors impacting rates of childhood obesity.
|
|
Smith Attended Nebraska Extension Meeting
In February, Postdoctoral Fellow Teresa Smith attended a Nebraska Extension meeting in Aurora, Neb., to plan the development of the Nebraska Healthy Retail Certification Program.
Nebraska Extension recently re-structured into “Issue Teams” to increase transdisciplinary communication and collaboration across important issues facing Nebraska. Issue Team #17, Improving Access to Affordable, Safe and Nutritious Foods, held a retreat to further determine focus for the next three to five years. Currently, the team has three committees working on three different outcome areas to address food access: 1) Nebraskans will have increased access to locally grown and raised food that is affordable, nutritious and safe. 2) An increased number of food retailers will participate in healthy food retail programming and/or adopt healthier store policies. 3) Reduce levels of food waste through adoption of safe food handling and storage practices.
Creating a Healthy Food Retail Certification Program in partnership with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services is affiliated with the second outcome. The recent retreat focused on drafting the program standards and included representatives from Extension, local public health departments, Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition.
Support for the Healthy Food Retail Certification Program is provided in part by Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services' Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Program.
|
|
Society of Behavioral Medicine Annual Meeting
March 30 through April 2, Drs. Amy Yaroch, Courtney Pinard and Teresa Smith will attend the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Yaroch serves as a delegate member on the SBM board of directors, and will be finishing her term at this upcoming meeting. In addition, she served on the committee for the Leadership Institute, and will be a panelist with other SBM leaders to describe her leadership trajectory. In addition, she will co-chair a session on recruitment strategies and challenges in behavioral medicine, and she will participate as a panelist for the Non-Traditional Careers in Behavioral Medicine panel discussion for the SBM Student Special Interest Group.
As a new Leadership Institute fellow for SBM, Pinard will be attending a pre-meeting Leadership Institute, March 28 through 30, and leading a session, “Impact of Food Environment on Health Outcomes,” during the annual meeting.
Smith will be attending a pre-conference workshop, “Network Meta-Analysis for Behavioral Trials: An Introduction and Overview,” and beginning her term as chair of the Population Health Sciences Special Interest Group at a breakfast roundtable. She will also be co-chairing a session on maternal health and well-being, and presenting two posters related to the National Cancer Institute’s Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating (FLASHE) Survey (a forthcoming public-use data resource) – “Using 24-hour dietary recall data to estimate fruit and vegetable intake from a dietary screener from a national survey” and “Parent and adolescent dietary patterns using dietary screener items from the FLASHE Survey.” Following the conference, she will run the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run.
|
|
|
|
STAFF PARTICIPATED IN CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL SYMPOSIUM
On Thursday, February 25, Drs. Amy Yaroch and Cristy Geno Rasmussen, Project Manager Katie Stern and Project Manager Hollyanne Fricke attended the Children’s Hospital & Medical Center’s Preventing Childhood Obesity Grant Symposium at the Durham Museum in Omaha. As a 2015 grant recipient for the TeachKidsNutrition.org project, Center staff and other grant recipients presented posters highlighting their work in the community from the past year. Stern served on one of two panel discussions about grant projects (third from right in the photo above).
Year 3 of this grant program ends in March; Year 4 grants will be announced this spring.
|
|
|
|
Executive Director,
Dr. Amy Yaroch
|
|
Mission
The Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition is an independent research institution providing scientific expertise, partnership and resources to improve diet and physical activity behaviors among youth and their families to help grow a healthier next generation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
