After some considerations, Group 2 has decided to modify their research approach to their project more feasible. Instead of collecting data for their research, members will make use of existing statistics in various databases.
Here is a sample of the questions they are going to answer through their research:
1. What is the incidence of this condition in New Jersey and in the United States as a whole?
2. Are there racial, gender, SES, and regional inequalities in the incidence of this condition in the United States?
3. What can be said about racial, gender, SES, and regional inequalities in the incidence of this disease within the state of New Jersey?
4. What can you say about the cost and effectiveness of treating this condition vs. the cost and effectiveness of preventing this condition? What tradeoffs would a shift from treatment to prevention pose to New Jersey lawmakers?
Their findings will help to map the overall status of health and racial disparities in New Jersey.
Monday, November 17, 2008
GROUP 1 - Food as a Public Health Issue (2nd post)
All members have submitted a plan of their research by this week, which covers a wide range of interesting topics:
1. Review of international questions of food and health, as well as international hunger programs (Sarimer S. )
2. Review of contemporary activism around local food movements and/or organic food availability, with a focus especially on organic food (Aba O.)
3. History of the USDA food pyramid, food safety regulations, and changing government assertions about what is healthy (Carol S.)
4. History and contemporary politics of school lunch programs (Lauren B.)
Their findings will shed light on why food is a public health issue.
1. Review of international questions of food and health, as well as international hunger programs (Sarimer S. )
2. Review of contemporary activism around local food movements and/or organic food availability, with a focus especially on organic food (Aba O.)
3. History of the USDA food pyramid, food safety regulations, and changing government assertions about what is healthy (Carol S.)
4. History and contemporary politics of school lunch programs (Lauren B.)
Their findings will shed light on why food is a public health issue.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Interviews with Stakeholders: Groups 17-21
These groups are tasked with speaking to key leaders in the different cities under study. Each group was required to submit a plan of action by Thursday, so they met throughout the early part of the week to discuss what stakeholders they wished to interview and what questions they should ask, as no clear specifications had been given by CHE.
Working independently, each group arrived at interviewing more or less at the same types of stakeholders, which included mayors, doctors and nurses, owners of grocery stores and municipal health officials. The basic strategy that most group members indicated they want to employ is to ask the same basic core questions to all stakeholders that they interview, with a few questions then tailored directly to the individual.
Most groups mainly focused on what questions they wanted to ask and selecting general categories of stakeholders, but a few have already come up with specific names of individuals for at least a few of their stakeholder categories and also spent time fine-tuning questions to avoid biased or leading questions.
Samples of questions include:
1. What are the primary issues relating to food availability and healthcare?
2. What are the health outcomes and effects you see? Who are the most vulnerable populations?
3. What are the governmental policies to address the issue of food availability? What are the non-profit responses to this problem?
4. What is the economic impact of malnutrition on the community and the healthcare system?
5. What kind of food is served in your hospital?
6. Does your store take any initiative to sell healthy food to your customers?
The groups were required to submit their action plans yesterday, and some are meeting again over the weekend to discuss feedback and decide how to best move forward with interviews.
Working independently, each group arrived at interviewing more or less at the same types of stakeholders, which included mayors, doctors and nurses, owners of grocery stores and municipal health officials. The basic strategy that most group members indicated they want to employ is to ask the same basic core questions to all stakeholders that they interview, with a few questions then tailored directly to the individual.
Most groups mainly focused on what questions they wanted to ask and selecting general categories of stakeholders, but a few have already come up with specific names of individuals for at least a few of their stakeholder categories and also spent time fine-tuning questions to avoid biased or leading questions.
Samples of questions include:
1. What are the primary issues relating to food availability and healthcare?
2. What are the health outcomes and effects you see? Who are the most vulnerable populations?
3. What are the governmental policies to address the issue of food availability? What are the non-profit responses to this problem?
4. What is the economic impact of malnutrition on the community and the healthcare system?
5. What kind of food is served in your hospital?
6. Does your store take any initiative to sell healthy food to your customers?
The groups were required to submit their action plans yesterday, and some are meeting again over the weekend to discuss feedback and decide how to best move forward with interviews.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
City Residents Speak about Food: Groups 9, 10, 11 and 12
The paramount responsibility for the residents speak groups is to collect information about how individual residents in Camden, Newark, New Brunswick and Trenton view food, its importance and its impact on daily lives. Members of each group will travel to their respective city to interview residents at local grocery stores or food pantries. Through video, audio recording and personal note taking, these groups will produce detailed transcripts of the interviews or short films about the interviews and an analytical review of the data collected. Each group will ultimately collaborate amongst themselves to produce a final product in the form of a short paper illustrating their findings.
This week, in anticipation for the upcoming field trips to Trenton, Camden, New Brunswick and Newark, the groups discussed in person or via email what sorts of questions they wanted to include in the interviews with the residents. I was able to meet up with the Camden and New Brunswick groups while they met in Frist to prepare their list of interview questions. Here I got the chance to get a sense from the groups about how they felt the project was going thus far, their expectations for their future research and what aspects of their assigned role within the project were unclear or confusing to them. Their responses to a short questionnaire they filled out helped indicate where they stand.
They all expressed a desire for more guidance and structure within the project, but at the same time seemed to be tackling their prescribed roles within the project quite well and enthusiastically. Confusion over how the actual field trips would be conducted was a minor barrier the groups faced when trying to come up with an appropriate list of questions, as they were unsure of what sort of interview settings to expect. However, this did not bar them from effectively compiling a comprehensive list of pertinent and important questions to ask the residents. Below is a sample of one of the groups working-progress interview list:
1) How often do you come here and pick up food?
2) Do you like the food provided here? What suggestions do you have for food to be added?
3) Do you think that the food provided here is better than what you would get otherwise / ate before?
4) How often do you buy pre-prepared food?
5) Where are your favorite places to eat?
6) What are your main concerns when buying and preparing food?
7) Do you look specifically for fresh fruit and vegetables? How about organic foods?
8) How important is having high quality food to you?
9) What does a “healthy diet” mean to you? Do you think you eat a “healthy diet”?
10) How many people are you buying for?
11) How much time do you have to prepare your food?
12) How do you get to and from the grocery stores?
13) Do you think that poor quality food/ poor access to food? If so, what reasons do you think account for this?
14) Do you think that local representatives need to be talking about the quality of food available in Camden?
15) Where does quality of food access rank in importance do you?
The questionnaire also shed light on the group member’s individual mindsets and backgrounds coming into the project. When asked about their own personal nutritional habits the responses varied: vegetarians, “balanced” diets and packaged food were just a few of the habits cited. Overall, the responses reflected an awareness that food is key factor to what it means to live a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Furthermore, they mostly attributed their current nutritional habits to the environment they grew up in and the nutritional values and access said setting instilled within them. It will be interesting to see how the individual group members own relationships with and opinions about food will juxtapose those of the residents interviewed in the weeks to come.
This week, in anticipation for the upcoming field trips to Trenton, Camden, New Brunswick and Newark, the groups discussed in person or via email what sorts of questions they wanted to include in the interviews with the residents. I was able to meet up with the Camden and New Brunswick groups while they met in Frist to prepare their list of interview questions. Here I got the chance to get a sense from the groups about how they felt the project was going thus far, their expectations for their future research and what aspects of their assigned role within the project were unclear or confusing to them. Their responses to a short questionnaire they filled out helped indicate where they stand.
They all expressed a desire for more guidance and structure within the project, but at the same time seemed to be tackling their prescribed roles within the project quite well and enthusiastically. Confusion over how the actual field trips would be conducted was a minor barrier the groups faced when trying to come up with an appropriate list of questions, as they were unsure of what sort of interview settings to expect. However, this did not bar them from effectively compiling a comprehensive list of pertinent and important questions to ask the residents. Below is a sample of one of the groups working-progress interview list:
1) How often do you come here and pick up food?
2) Do you like the food provided here? What suggestions do you have for food to be added?
3) Do you think that the food provided here is better than what you would get otherwise / ate before?
4) How often do you buy pre-prepared food?
5) Where are your favorite places to eat?
6) What are your main concerns when buying and preparing food?
7) Do you look specifically for fresh fruit and vegetables? How about organic foods?
8) How important is having high quality food to you?
9) What does a “healthy diet” mean to you? Do you think you eat a “healthy diet”?
10) How many people are you buying for?
11) How much time do you have to prepare your food?
12) How do you get to and from the grocery stores?
13) Do you think that poor quality food/ poor access to food? If so, what reasons do you think account for this?
14) Do you think that local representatives need to be talking about the quality of food available in Camden?
15) Where does quality of food access rank in importance do you?
The questionnaire also shed light on the group member’s individual mindsets and backgrounds coming into the project. When asked about their own personal nutritional habits the responses varied: vegetarians, “balanced” diets and packaged food were just a few of the habits cited. Overall, the responses reflected an awareness that food is key factor to what it means to live a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Furthermore, they mostly attributed their current nutritional habits to the environment they grew up in and the nutritional values and access said setting instilled within them. It will be interesting to see how the individual group members own relationships with and opinions about food will juxtapose those of the residents interviewed in the weeks to come.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Groups 5-8: Food Availability in Stores
These travel based groups will visit the following cities-
Group 5: Trenton
Group 6: Camden
Group 7: Newark
Group 8: New Brunswick
- and will report on food availability. They will use the USDA’s Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) Survey (found on the USDA website) as a guideline for measuring food availability. The Thrifty Food Plan indicates how much and what kinds of food a family of four needs throughout a week in order to receive a healthy nutritious diet. Each group member will be visiting grocery stores, counting food, and computing the percent of food missing relative to the Thrifty Food Plan. They will later compare the data that they collect among each other, and with the national average. Each member’s final work will include photographs, a report on the specific aspect of food availability that he/she chose to focus on, as well as a short paper and several power point slides. At the end, the groups will produce a collective short paper that will be included as a final chapter of the report.
Although there has been some discussion between groups as to how to adopt a unified method of measuring food availability, distinct approaches to the problem have been emerging in the groups that have been meeting.
Group 7 will be structuring its research questions around the underlying social, economic and institutional factors that affect community food security in Newark. Each member will focus on collecting data relevant to one of the following four aspects of food availability:
- The presence of Federal Food Assistance Programs such as food stamp programs, National School Lunch programs, or elderly nutrition programs.
- The Accessibility of supermarket and corner stores, as well as the presence of private and public transportation. The infrastructure necessary to deliver Federal Food Assistance Program benefits efficiently will also be examined.
- The types of Food available, and the percent of items missing in each important food category relative to the TFP.
- The Affordability of Food – both the prices of individual items, as well as the cost of the entire TFP market basket will be taken into consideration. The group will also look at how prices vary across stores in Newark as well as at whether or not stores accept food stamps.
After meeting with Jane Weber, the Public Health Coordinator of the Lourdes Center for Public Health, Xinyi Duan from Group 8 decided that it would be best to count grocery items in supermarkets in New Brunswick using a shortened version of the Thrifty Food Plan. She has also added one more component to the TFP: the availability of healthy food substitutes. This is of particular importance given the nutrition-related health problems prevalent among immigrants that were mentioned in lecture by the CEO of our community partner Catholic Health East. Although health food will be the focus of the research, her group will also look at:
- The types of food present in each store
- The affordability of food in the community.
- The type of advertising found in stores.
The data collected in supermarkets in New Brunswick will act as a control for the data collected in the other three cities.
It will be exciting to see what different approaches groups 5 and 6 will choose to adopt, and to observe how the different groups’ findings will give a unified view of the problem of food availability throughout New Jersey.
Group 5: Trenton
Group 6: Camden
Group 7: Newark
Group 8: New Brunswick
- and will report on food availability. They will use the USDA’s Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) Survey (found on the USDA website) as a guideline for measuring food availability. The Thrifty Food Plan indicates how much and what kinds of food a family of four needs throughout a week in order to receive a healthy nutritious diet. Each group member will be visiting grocery stores, counting food, and computing the percent of food missing relative to the Thrifty Food Plan. They will later compare the data that they collect among each other, and with the national average. Each member’s final work will include photographs, a report on the specific aspect of food availability that he/she chose to focus on, as well as a short paper and several power point slides. At the end, the groups will produce a collective short paper that will be included as a final chapter of the report.
Although there has been some discussion between groups as to how to adopt a unified method of measuring food availability, distinct approaches to the problem have been emerging in the groups that have been meeting.
Group 7 will be structuring its research questions around the underlying social, economic and institutional factors that affect community food security in Newark. Each member will focus on collecting data relevant to one of the following four aspects of food availability:
- The presence of Federal Food Assistance Programs such as food stamp programs, National School Lunch programs, or elderly nutrition programs.
- The Accessibility of supermarket and corner stores, as well as the presence of private and public transportation. The infrastructure necessary to deliver Federal Food Assistance Program benefits efficiently will also be examined.
- The types of Food available, and the percent of items missing in each important food category relative to the TFP.
- The Affordability of Food – both the prices of individual items, as well as the cost of the entire TFP market basket will be taken into consideration. The group will also look at how prices vary across stores in Newark as well as at whether or not stores accept food stamps.
After meeting with Jane Weber, the Public Health Coordinator of the Lourdes Center for Public Health, Xinyi Duan from Group 8 decided that it would be best to count grocery items in supermarkets in New Brunswick using a shortened version of the Thrifty Food Plan. She has also added one more component to the TFP: the availability of healthy food substitutes. This is of particular importance given the nutrition-related health problems prevalent among immigrants that were mentioned in lecture by the CEO of our community partner Catholic Health East. Although health food will be the focus of the research, her group will also look at:
- The types of food present in each store
- The affordability of food in the community.
- The type of advertising found in stores.
The data collected in supermarkets in New Brunswick will act as a control for the data collected in the other three cities.
It will be exciting to see what different approaches groups 5 and 6 will choose to adopt, and to observe how the different groups’ findings will give a unified view of the problem of food availability throughout New Jersey.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Group 4—Infrastructure in New Jersey, Part II
Similar to “Infrastructure Group, Part I,” The main goal of this group is to map out the health and food-related infrastructures in
-Hospitals/Clinics: what effect does the proximity of healthcare, and the patient capacity of each institution, have on community health?
-Community Centers/YMCAs/Recreational Facilities: what role do they play as distributors of health and nutritional information?
-Grocery Stores: how many stores (whether health food, major food, corner store, or farmer’s markets) do the communities have, what foods are available and what alternative foods are available?
-Restaurants: interested in how many fast-food chains and non-chain restaurants in each community, and the availability and diversity of the foods they provide.
-Pharmacies: what role do adequate pharmacies play in the ability of the community to acquire prescribed medications.
-Food Pantries/Soup Kitchens: will use these to further include food sources for any groups of community members who may not get their food from grocery stores, or restaurants.
-Urban Farms: what role do they have in creating a “better” (healthier) food source for community members.
In addition to researching these areas of infrastructure, students will also go to these places, take pictures, and report about on-the-ground realities. In the end, each member of this group will produce a map of his/her specific focus, a short paper, and several power-point slides for the final presentation. The group as a whole will produce a short paper and a comprehensive map that will be included as a chapter of the final report.
Group 3—Infrastructure in New Jersey, Part I
The main goal of this group is to map out the infrastructure in
-Transportation: how residents use it to access their food and health care providers
-Playgrounds: the role they play in facilitating exercise and giving children an alternative to other detrimental activities
-Vacant land/Unoccupied Buildings: how it signals lack of wealth in a community and also acts as a prime location for illegal activities
-Liquor stores: what the demand for liquor means (there is only supply if there is demand), what the money could be better spent on and the adverse health effects which result from excessive use.
-Schools: how the quality of the schools reflect the wealth of the area and the health of its community members
-Public Housing/Rental Housing: how they reflect the transience of communities, which often plays a role in health because of a lack of community and interconnectedness
-Banks & Lending Institutions: banks show wealth and investment in a community, but payday lending institutions are more common in poor neighborhoods and prey on the community.
-Government sources/Non-Profit services: how these institutions aid in access to healthcare, social services, and government welfare services.
-Churches & Other Religious Institutions: how they build community cohesion and provide access to services
And, to get a real feel for the environment, students will actually go to these places, take pictures and report about on-the-ground realities. In the end, each member of this group will produce a map of his/her specific focus, a short paper, and several power-point slides for the final presentation. The group as a whole will produce a short paper and a comprehensive map that will be included as a chapter of the final report.
It promises to be a very interesting project.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)