My research seeks to examine policies that impact diet, and the mechanisms through which these may operate.  I am particularly interested in how policies and food environments affect access to specific foods, diet, and cardiometabolic risk in Latin America and the Caribbean and among vulnerable populations in the United States.   I study the neighborhood, home, and sociocultural determinants of diet, seeking to identify how to engage family and community partners in actions to improve access to foods and nutrition care when there are other competing priorities to their wellbeing.  

Highlighted past research:

Nutrition policy and trans-fatty acids: Our work on the determinants and consequences of trans-fatty acid intake in Costa Rica showed that decreases in trans-fatty acid content in the food supply were translated into decreases in intake of trans fatty acids (self-reported diet and biomarkers) in the study population, and that this had subsequent implications for the link between trans -fat intake and risk of myocardial infarction. I then studied the process of translation of this evidence into policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

1. Shaping our Kids’ Diets: Home and Neighborhood (Principal Investigator).  This is a participatory qualitative research study and formative work that seeks to identify barriers and facilitators that parents living in Ward 7 of Washington DC and in Langley Park, MD experience at home and in their neighborhoods.   This work is funded by the GW Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement.
2. Water Up! Latino mothers and young children (pilot intervention trial - Principal Investigator) to evaluate net effect of an intervention that addresses the multiple sociocultural and physical barriers to drink plain water instead of sugary drinks.
3. Water Up! (co-Principal Investigator).   Through this community-based participatory project funded by the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health of the CDC, our coalition seeks to develop a multi-level intervention that targets schools, businesses and homes to improve access to drinking water in these settings, and decrease intake of sweetened drinks among a largely Hispanic immigrant community in the greater Washington DC metropolitan area.  This project operates under the infrastructure of the Avance Center for the Advancement of Immigrant/Refugee Health of the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (http://avancegw.org/aboutus/)

4. Family environment, stress, and dietary risk factors for diabetes (Principal Investigator): This is a secondary data analysis in collaboration with the Hispanic Community Health Study of Latinos- Sociocultural Ancillary Study, to describe the cross-sectional associations between family environment, stress measures, and dietary risk factors for diabetes and other cardiometabolic risks.