Research Summary
Research Statement
As a PhD candidate my research has been mostly focused on one specific topic area, though I have initiated many collaborations with others at my university to expand the populations and variables examined in this topic area. This focus area is food insecurity, which I entered my PhD program knowing I wanted to research due to my experiences working with food assistance programs prior to this. Including, serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer In Service To America) for the non-profit Maryland Hunger Solutions in 2012 then as a consultant for USDA Summer Food Service Programs in 2014.
Though food insecurity has broadly been an interest of mine for a decade now, it was after joining UAB and learning about their on-campus food pantry that I became interested in food insecurity among college students specifically. In recent years, the research related to food insecurity on college campuses has evolved to where we have a much better understanding of the prevalence of this problem and the negative physical and mental health concerns associated with it. However, there has been little research that tests possible solutions to address food insecurity among college students or programs that aim to better these students’ circumstances. Therefore, this is the focus of my dissertation which is titled, Theory-Based Nutrition Education to Improve Food Security in Post-Secondary Students. To begin my dissertation I developed and collected survey data from students who used the on-campus food pantry between two academic years. This gave me better background on the characteristics of food insecure students on this campus, which helped me to develop a small feasibility intervention study. In this study I am examining the impact of an individualized nutrition education workshop and cooking demonstration on food insecure students’ knowledge of nutrition, confidence in meal preparation ability, and perceptions of their food insecure circumstances. There is a qualitative component to this study, but it is an optional in-depth interview so this qualitative component is mainly intended to provide additional, rich detail of the participants’ experiences for future research considerations. Though this research is not qualitatively focused, I do have interest in pursuing more qualitative research in the future as this was the type of research I conducted (phenomenological, specially) for my masters degree. I am actively collecting the data for my feasibility study with anticipation of completing my dissertation in 2023. Upon completing this project and defending my dissertation, if found effective, I plan to administer this intervention on a larger scale and with more of a randomized trial design. The National Institutes of Health released a Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) earlier this year for research to “understand and address hunger, food, and nutrition insecurity”. This NOSI is open until November 2024, so this may be a great funding opportunity for me to complete a larger scale intervention based on my dissertation research. I do feel passionate about food insecurity research and plan to continue researching in this area in the future, though I am open to exploring new areas of research and always enjoy collaborating with others to expand the topics or populations I am investigating. One of the first projects I plan to resume after finishing my dissertation is research related to food insecurity in collegiate athletes. I developed a survey and collected data on the prevalence of food insecurity among collegiate athletes from various sports at multiple universities with the help of colleagues who work in sports nutrition. Food insecurity in this population is uniquely concerning considering the high nutrient needs of these students, for football players specifically these calorie needs are up to three times that of a traditional male college student. In addition to this project, I have collaborated on two recent projects related to food insecurity in different populations. One is also related to the impact of food insecurity in collegiate football players, but considers the impact on specific performance outcomes like max velocity. The second is related to gait speed in older adult populations, as we found that food insecurity may be an early indicator of poor gait speed in older adult populations using national Health and Retirement Study Data. Finally, I am actively engaged in a project funded by a small, secondary analysis grant from the Obesity Health Disparities Research Center at UAB. This project also focuses on food insecurity in college students, but looks at stress and psychological well-being as moderators of the relationship between food insecurity and a high BMI in college students. A poster of this research was just presented at The Obesity Society annual conference in the beginning of November (2022). Aside from researching food insecurity I find theory-based intervention development extremely interesting and would love to be involved in more projects that do this in a community based participatory research fashion. Additionally, I have engaged in multiple teaching research projects and do also find these interesting considering the direct impact they have on improving our courses. Overall, I am happy to be at a point in my career where I do feel I have a specialty area that I genuinely enjoy conducting research in, yet have plenty of time and opportunity to expand the breadth of the topics I am engaged with as a researcher. Updated December 2022 |
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Publications
- Stowers, L., Harman, T., Pavela, G., Fernandez, J.; (2022) The Impact of Food Security Status on Body Composition Changes in Collegiate Football Players. Int J Sports Exec Med. 8(5): 1-8. In Press. DOI: 10.23937/2469-5718/1510238
- Lappan, S., Harman, T., Pavela, G., Hendricks, P.; (2022). Relationship Between Food Security Status in a Caregiver’s Family and Current Feeding Practices among Low-Income, Single, Female Primary Caregivers. Family & Community Health. 45(4): 257-266.
- Harman, T., Bertrand, B., Greer, A., Pettus, A., Jennings, J., Babatunde, O., Wall-Bassett, E.; (2015). Case-based Learning Facilitates Critical Thinking in Undergraduate Nutrition Education: Students Describe the ‘Big Picture’. JAND, 115(3):378-88. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2014.09.003. Cited by 76
- Bertrand, B., Pryor, J., Brinkley, J., Babatunde, O., Harman, T.; (2013). Dietitian Sex Differences Toward Adult Weight Loss Counseling. Health Care, 1(3), 104-111. doi: 10.12966/hc.11.09.2013
Text Publications
- Pavela, G; Harman, T; Cardel, MI; Lee, A; (2019) Obesity and Socioeconomic Status. In: Meiselman H. (eds) Handbook of Eating and Drinking. Springer, Cham
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8342-6418
Research Poster Presentations
National Conferences |
ObesityWeek®, The Obesity Society, San Diego, CA | November 2022
Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo | October 19, 2021
American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Expo, Denver, Colorado | October 27, 2021
American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Expo | October 2020
Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE), Houston, TX | October 2013
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Regional Conferences |
American College of Sports Medicine (Southeast) Annual Meeting, Greenville, SC | February 2022
UA System Behavioral Health Research Symposium, Birmingham, AL | October 2019
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Local Conferences |
School of Public Health Research Day, Birmingham, AL | April 7, 2022
Educational Research & Innovations in Clinical & Health Sciences (ENRICH), Healthcare Educators Academy, UAB School of Medicine | September 2021
School of Public Health Research Day, Birmingham, AL | April 2019
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