Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Tuesday October 25

• Welcome introduction and state report highlights: State PI’s and group advisor provided an update of individual, department, college, university, and state-level changes and announcements.
• USDA Overview: Dennis Savaiano, Administrative Advisor
• Research & Grant Planning – Objective 1: Dissemination and implementation of Healthy Campus Research Consortium (HCRC’s) suite of tools that utilize a policy, systems, and environment (PSE) approach for campuses. Received a USDA conference grant to host HCRC Conference to disseminate the groups tools. The virtual HCRC conference was held and hosted by University of Tennessee in Nov/Dec of 2022. Further discussed potential timing, recruitment, dissemination strategies, and working with organizations to continue to market and disseminate our groups tools.
• Research Planning- Objective 2: Development of policy, systems, environment (PSE) assessment tools for urban and rural communities with low income considering social determinants of health and influential disruptive factors (IDFs).
  • Continued work to adapt current campus tools for young adults in the surrounding communities.
• Future Leadership: Identified PIs for future leadership roles for the administrative executive committee (chair and secretary) and subcommittees

Wednesday October 26

• Future Meetings: Planned dates for future monthly meeting calls and annual meeting dates
• Research Planning- Objective 3: Expanded understanding of college students’ dietary patterns considering social determinants of health and influential disruptive factors (IDFs) with an emphasis on food insecurity, mental health, and the built environment.
  • Healthy Campus Environmental Audits tool for mental health
  • Continued work on development of college student food insecurity tools.
• Research Planning- Objective 4: Exploration and interpretation of interactions between lifestyle behaviors and environmental factors using big data analysis techniques with multiple data sets.
  • Discussed plans for future funding to support big data project and next steps for moving forward.
• Review Policy and Procedures: Policies, Procedures, and Reports; Information, Data, and Outputs; and Program Planning. Discussed state report content/format, annual reporting requirements and due dates, member expectations (definitions and terms), and potential changes to policies and procedures document.

Thursday October 27

• Rapid Orals: students from PI universities presented 5-minute oral presentations on topics related to the groups work.
• Future grant planning: Explore funding opportunities; NIH, USDA AFRI future funding; several sub-committees were formed to work on upcoming grant ideas for the next year.
• USDA Update: upcoming grant cycles and overview

Target Audience: Young adults, university campus community, and urban and rural communities experiencing low-income.

Accomplishments: The overarching goal of this multistate project is to support college campuses and other communities in creating environments and opportunities that embrace young adults’ unique barriers to a healthy lifestyle, promote healthier weights, and reduce health disparities among vulnerable members. This project uses acommunity based participatory approach (CBPR).  Involving the community directly in the research process helps the community gain awareness of and interest in the issues that must be addressed to successfully prevent obesity in young adults.  This year, the research collaborative group is made up of 18 universities. The research impacts from this group have the potential for extensive health care cost savings. Additionally, this work has increased awareness regarding the importance of environmental supports needed for healthier choices with stakeholders such as university administrators, faculty, staff, and students. Outputs included 6 publications, 12 abstracts, 8 presentations, and 2 master’s theses.

HCRC Research Objective 1:

Two activities occurred that support this objective. The first activity was the awarding of a conference grant to University of Tennessee to disseminate the outcomes from the multistate work. This conference took place November 29 - December 1, 2022 virtually. One of the goals of the conference was to disseminate to the attendees the set of tools that were developed by the multi-state group to benchmark healthfulness of campuses. The second goal of the conference was to allow sharing and collaboration from other institutions with similar interests. The group is strategically planning for further dissemination of our suite of tools to other health-related organizations, universities, and interested institutions.

HCRC Research Objective 2:

To accomplish this work, focus groups are ongoing with different groups within the community to assess their perceptions of healthfulness of the environment in communities with those who have lower incomes. In the previous cycle, Extension nutrition educators who work with communities that are classified as lower income were interviewed for their perceptions of the healthfulness of the environment. This next step in the study involved interviewing community stakeholders about their perceived barriers and facilitators to engaging in healthful behaviors in these communities. A collaborative, refereed journal article is under final review based on data collected with Extension nutrition educators.

HCRC Research Objective 3:

The current surveys are lacking assessment questions specific to the influential disruptive factors in the college population. Auburn led the development of a survey to assess food security on college campuses. The goal of this step in the survey development was to ensure that the survey was understandable for the target audience. A survey is currently developed and will be tested with a subgroup of states. Likewise, to address mental health among young adults, discussions were had around surveying for health-related quality of life, mental health challenges, and potential for an environmental audit of mental health services on campuses.

Training:

• Total of 60 students were trained in research (1 NH, 6 ME, 3 MS, 5 TN, 1 WV, 2 FL, 15 RI, 2 TX, 12 NJ, 2 MO, 4 KY, 6 OH, 1 KS)

Publications:

1. Jadhav A, Vadiveloo M, Laforge RG, Melanson KJ. Dietary contributors to fermentable carbohydrate intake in healthy American college students. J Am Coll Health. 2022 Sep 28:1-11. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2022.2119403. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36170454.
2. Fandetti, S. M., Dahl, A. A., Webster, C., Bably, M. B., Coffman, M. J., & Racine, E. F. (2023). Healthy Food Policies Documented in University Food Service Contracts. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(16), 6617.
3. Dunn SB, Orchard TS, Andridge R, Rymuth SM, Slesnick N, Hatsu IE. Mental Health in Society’s Margins: Poor Omega-3 PUFA Intake and Psychological Well-being of Homeless Youth. British Journal of Nutrition.2023;1–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000711452300212X
4. Neptune, L., Yerxa, K. Therrien, M., Byrd-Bredbenner, C., McNamara, J. (2023) Sexual Minority College Undergraduate Students Have Worse Health-Related Quality of Life, Diet Quality, and Weight Dissatisfaction than Their Heterosexual Peers. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. 55:651-658. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37452819/ doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2023.05.256
5. Eck, K. and Byrd-Bredbenner, C. (2022) Development and Psychometric Validation of the Athletes’ Perceived Body Pressures from Coaches Questionnaire (APBPCQ). International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19:16416. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16416/htm doi: 10.3390/ijerph192416416
6. Barr ML, McNamara J. Community-Based Participatory Research: Partnering with College Students to develop a Tailored, Wellness-Focused Intervention for University Campuses. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19.23 (2022): 16331; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192316331

Presentations:

1. Colgan E, Fera H, Browne E, Brusini B, Curreri L, Mackenzie H, Ragosta M, Greene G. Nutrition Environment in the Food Pantry Assessment Tool (NEFPAT) at the Jonnycake Center for Hope and the Rhody Outpost. USDA’s Multistate Research Team, the Healthy Campus Research Consortium Virtual Conference Assessing the Healthfulness of College Campuses (December 2022)
2. Fera H, Colgan E, Browne E, Brusini B, Curreri L, Mackenzie H, Ragosta M, Greene G. FRESH Audit Training Development. USDA’s Multistate Research Team, the Healthy Campus Research Consortium Virtual Conference Assessing the Healthfulness of College Campuses (December 2022)
3. Greene G. Green Eating. USDA’s Multistate Research Team, the Healthy Campus Research Consortium Virtual Conference Assessing the Healthfulness of College Campuses (December 2022)
4. Barr ML. Short Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Assessing The Healthfulness of College Campuses Healthy Campus Research Consortium (HCRC). Online. December 1, 2022.
5. , V. Short International Physical Activity Questionnaire. USDA’s Multistate Research Team, the Healthy Campus Research Consortium Virtual Conference (December 2022)
6. Fandetti S, Racine EF, Hatami F, Murphy K, Paul R. The Impact of Food Environment Modification on University Students’ Purchasing Behavior. 2023 Annual Meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, April 2023 in Phoenix, AZ.
7. Racine EF, Fandetti S, Hatami F, Murphy K, Paul R. The Impact of Food Environment Modification on University Students’ Purchasing Behavior. 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, July 2023 in Boston, MA.
8. McKeague, M., Colby, S., O’Neal, M., Mathews, R., & Olfert, M. (2023, July 8). A World of Difference: Effects of a World Foods College Course on Diet Quality. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. 
   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1499404623002531

Abstracts:

1. Larcom AB, Melanson KJ, Lofgren IE. Elevated Body Mass Index Is Associated with Markers of Metabolic Risk in College Students. Obesity (November 2022)
2. Larcom AB, Lofgren IE, Melanson KJ. Ultraprocessed food intake is associated with lower diet quality in young adult college students. Current Developments in Nutrition 2023
3. Seibold, I., Larcom, A.B., Melanson, K. J. (2023). Fiber and Sugar Intakes in College Students and associations with Blood Pressure. In The Obesity Society Annual Meeting.
4. Carlton, B., Melanson, K., & Greene, G. (2023). Validation of a Stage of Change Algorithm for Plant-Based Protein in College Students. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 55, 31.
5. McKeague, M., Colby, S., O’Neal, M., Mathews, R., & Olfert, M. (2023, June 17). A World of Difference: Effects of a World Foods College Course on Food Familiarity and Diet Quality [poster] ISBNPA, Uppsala, Sweden. https://annualmeeting.isbnpa.org/
6. Raymond K, Neptune L, Winn C, Parsons K, Watra E, Harrington E, Zhou W, Barr ML, McNamara J. (2023) Differences in Diet Quality and Health Related Quality of Life based on Peer Influence. Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo Annual Meeting. October 2023, Denver, CO.
7. Dunn SB, Lu SV, Hatsu I. “Gotta eat it to survive”: A Mixed Methods Study of Youth Experiencing Homelessness and their Food Environment. Curr Dev Nutr. 2023; 7:100331. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cdnut.2023.100331
8. Neptune L, Parsons K, Winn C, Watras E, Harrington E, Raymond K, Zhou W, Barr ML, McNamara J. (2023). Sexual Minority College Students are Less Food Secure than Their Heterosexual Peers. Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo Annual Meeting. October 2023, Denver, CO.
9. Winn C, Neptune L, Parsons K, Sullivan A, Watras E, Barr ML, Raymond K, Harrington E, McNamara J. (2023). University Meal Plans Act as a Protective Factor for Food Security and Mental Health Status in College Students. Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo Annual Meeting. October 2023, Denver, CO.
10. Harrington E, Parsons K, Neptune L, Winn C, Watras E, Raymond K, Zhou W, Barr ML, McNamara J. (2023). Cooking Self-Efficacy Predicts Diet Quality in College Students. Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo Annual Meeting. October 2023, Denver, CO.
11. Watras E, Parsons K, Neptune L, Sullivan A, Winn C, Zhou W, Barr ML, McNamara J. (2023) Critical Nutrition Literacy is a Predictor of Diet Quality in College Students. Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo Annual Meeting. October 2023, Denver, CO
12. Barr ML, McNamara J. Interactive Nutrition Literacy Related to Food Insecurity Status and Self-Perceived Health Among College Students. American Society for Nutrition Annual Conference. July 2023 Boston, MA