The Center offers research opportunitities to UC Davis graduate students, faculty, and other researchers to conduct a variety of projects in collaboration with the Cancer Prevention and Nutrition Section (CPNS).

The Center commissioned two literature reviews on nutrition and physical activity social marketing campaigns, which were conducted to guide the Center's research agenda.

You can also search our online database of over five hundred articles and presentations on social marketing, health promotion, and epidemiology which pertain to nutrition and physical activity.

Center Staff

The purpose of this ongoing project is to collect evaluation tools and strategies to measure the outcome of environmental and policy changes in community-based health promotion projects. The current collection of tools is available Here on the Center's website, with more to be added as they become available.

Center Staff

The purpose of this project was to develop a social marketing campaign for owners, executives, and managers of grocery stores to increase sales of fruit and vegetables and other cancer-preventing foods to food stamp recipients. A study was conducted on the feasibility of a grocery store operated shuttle bus service as a strategy to overcome transportation barriers and increase sales. Download Study Findings Here

Holly Hoegh, doctoral candidate in the UC Davis Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine

The Cal-TEENS project's intent was to measure fruit and vegetable consumption among adolescents in California. Data was collected in the spring of 1998. In addition, the project looked at how the effects of eating a school lunch, the availability of fruits and vegetables, and seasonality, affected consumption. There was concern that the fruit and vegetable component of the survey did not return an accurate number of servings. The intent of this project was to validate the data from the initial survey using the Nutritional Data System (NDS) software. The Survey Research Group of the Public Health Institute collected the data on 100 adolescents in California. Download Study Findings Here

Karen Jetter, research economist with the UC Davis Agricultural Issues Center

The purpose of this project was to develop a proposal for a broader project to determine the effects of increases in consumption of fruits and vegetables on growers and consumers within California. The hypothetical increases in consumption will be 1) a proportional increase in consumption, 2) increasing consumption to the recommended 7 fruits and vegetables a day according to the 6 categories determined by the California Department of Health Services (CDHS) - i.e. citrus, berries and melons; other fruit and non-citrus, 100% fruit juices; dark green and deep yellow vegetables (vit A rich); cruciferous vegetables; green salad vegetables; other vegetables; and 3) increasing consumption to levels attained by the individuals with the healthiest diets. Only the top 40 fruits and vegetables consumed were included in the analysis. For other studies on the economic impact of fruit and vegetable consumption and availability and cost of healthy foods click here: http://aic.ucdavis.edu

Marilyn Townsend, Cooperative Extension Nutrition Specialist, UCD

The purpose of this study was to determine if goal setting (a component of Social Learning Theory-- the theory most often used in social marketing youth interventions) increased the likelihood of nutrition/physical activity behavior change among the 12-14 year old adolescent group.The pilot study consisted of a six week intervention in which students were taught nutrition and goal setting utilizing the EatFit curriculum and was conducted at a school Esparto, California. Download Study Findings Here.

Co-principal investigators: Wendy Slusser, MD, MS, assistant clinical professor at School of Medicine/adjunct professor in the School of Public Health, and Charlotte Neumann, MD, MPH, professor, Schools of Medicine and Public Health.

In 1998, UCLA School of Public Health surveyed over 900 children in the L.A. Unified School District and found that over 40% of the elementary school children studied were obese, had low viatmin C intake, and ate only ~2 fruit and vegetable servings per day. In response to these findings, a pilot program offering a salad bar as a lunch menu option in conjunction with nutrition education was implemented. This project is evaluating the impact of a salad bar option on fruit and vegetable consumption of children in grades 2 to 5 in three schools.

A downloadable file of a presentation by Dr. Slusser at one of our recent Brown Bag Lecture Series events is available in PDF format here

A downloadable file on how to implement a salad bar program in your school's lunch menu program is available in PDF format here