Linda Snetselaar, RD, PhD - Principal Investigator

Dr. Snetselaar is a Professor of Epidemiology and Interim Head of the Department of Community and Behavioral Health. Her research interests include nutritional epidemiology, diabetes, CBPR and the relationship between cardiovascular disease and diet. Dr. Snetselaar's work in the town of Muscatine, Iowa provides an example of working closely with community members on health issues of importance to them. Dr. Snetselaar and her Nutrition Center (of which she is the founder and Director), have spent the past several years working with the school district and a community coalition they have formed in Muscatine to address the problem of childhood obesity. An extensive planning process was conducted and the group is now poised to engage in a variety of intervention activities.

linda-snetselaar@uiowa.edu

Faryle Nothwehr, MPH, PhD - Center Director

Dr. Nothwehr is an Associate Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health in the College of Public Health. Her research interests include health behavior change among adults, especially behaviors related to diet, exercise, and other cardiovascular risk factors. Dr. Nothwehr is the principal investigator of the PRC restaurant intervention study, oneof the center's core research projects. Through discussion with a working group of our community partners (CHAP) inSigourney, Iowa the PRC learned of their concern about the availability of healthy menu choices inlocal restaurants. Working closely with five rural restaurants, an intervention has been developed that has proven acceptable to restaurant owners, and has had an impact on the ordering behavior of customers. The preliminary research suggests that this low-cost, low-risk intervention is promising as an effective program and one that should be tested further. The next phase of this research will focus on dissemination of the program across the state of Iowa.

faryle-nothwehr@uiowa.edu

Theresa Armstead, PhD - Assistant Director and Program Evaluator

Dr. Armstead is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health in the College of Public Health. Her research interests include CBPR, community partnerships/collaborations and evaluation. Dr. Armstead has an interest in measuring processes by which community organizations accomplish their goals. In partnership with the CHAP group in Sigourney, Iowa she has developed a manual to guide organizations through a successful planning and evaluation process. The manual is especially tailored to small rural organizations and is undergoing its final editing process. A initial workshop has been given with others to follow. A pilot study is being conducted with a subset of the workshop participants to examine their use of the processes outline in the manual over time. This project is one of the PRC's core projects.

theresa-armstead@uiowa.edu

Helena Laroche, MD - Investigator

Dr. Laroche is an Associate of the General Internal Medicine faculty with a secondary appointment in the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Laroche is interested in diabetes, obesity prevention and treatment, and community-based intervention programs to promote health. Dr. Laroche has a pilot grant with the Wellmark Foundation that involves improving the food choices in high-school sports concession stands in Muscatine, Iowa. This project is a collaboration involving the Nutrition Center (Dr. Snetselaar) and the PRC. In addition, she is part of the team (which includes Dr. Armstead) assisting the Muscatine coalition with the evaluation of a set of school-based interventions.

helena-laroche@uiowa.edu

Yong-Chan Kim, PhD- Investigator

Dr. Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health in the College of Public Health. His research interests include health communication, health information seeking, health information technologies, and local community infrastructure for health.

yong-chan-kim@uiowa.edu

Joe Coulter, PhD- Investigator

Dr. Coulter is a Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health in the College of Public Health. His research interests include racial and ethnic health disparities, American Indian health, and tribal preparedness. Dr. Coulter is a co-director of Community Engagement on the University of Iowa Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) enterprise. The University of Iowa CTSA has named diabetes and obesity as their targeted health issues.

Heidi Haines, MS - Project Assistant

Ms. Haines is the Project Manager and coordinator for the center in addition to performing research tasks. She assists Dr. Amstead with the evaluation of the center and is responsible for the PRC Information System designed by the CDC.

heidi-sahr@uiowa.edu

Shellie Striegel, BA - Research Assistant

Ms. Striegel works from a home office is Sigourney where we continue to partner with community members. She assists with local projects in addition to center research related tasks. Ms. Striegel has been trained in the manual on rural community organizing developed by Dr. Armstead and will be assisting with future workshops.

shellie-striegel@uiowa.edu

Robert Svetly, MBA- Administrator

Mr. Svetly is the grants manager and human resources coordinator for the Department of Community and Behavioral Health and is Administrator for the PRC. In particular, he assists with budget development and management, and advises on fiscal issues.

robert-svetly@uiowa.edu