Nutrition Faculty Present Findings at Community Research Symposium

Lorraine Cordeiro (left) and Jerusha Peterman (right)

Lorraine Cordeiro and Jerusha Peterman, assistant professors in the Department of Nutrition, presented at the “Community Health and Research: Making the Connections” Symposium on November 4, 2011. The event, sponsored by the UMass Medical School’s Center for Clinical and Translational Research, was designed to promote clinical and translational science across the UMass five-campus system, and to promote better community-engaged research.

Drs. Cordeiro and Peterman presented findings from their community-based research projects to an audience of academic and community researchers, representatives from community health centers and agencies, and faculty from across the five-campus system. Cordeiro and Peterman shared their research on “Food Security, Food Practices and Health Risks among Pregnant and Postpartum Cambodian Women Residing in Massachusetts.” Peterman also presented “Food Insecurity: Nutrition and Health Implications for Immigrants and Refugees.”

The projects, supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, collect preliminary data of causes and consequences of food security in refugee and other low-income populations. The data will be used to support an R01 application to NIH in 2013.

The Nutrition department was also represented with a poster presentation on “Nutrition Research from Cells to Communities.”

Several students joined Drs. Cordeiro and Peterman at the symposium, including Shanshan Chen, a graduate student in Nutrition, and undergraduate students Sovandara Sarou, Kannika Chap, and Alina Lee. Together, they helped design and present the posters.

One example of how the symposium achieved its mission of promoting clinical and translational science across the five-campus system came when Ms. Chen was subsequently asked to participate in translating nutrition information into Chinese for Yunsheng Ma, MD, PhD, MPH. Dr. Ma is an alumnus of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and currently serves as Associate Professor of Medicine at the UMass Medical School. In addition, Daneille Reilly, MPH '10, a former student of Dr. Cordeiro, invited the student researchers to visit her community-based program in the Boston area.