Arnold School: Becoming an Engaged Institution and
Eliminating Health Disparities
Cancer Prevention and Control Program
Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies
Duke Endowment Wellness Initiative
Healthy Eating Reduces Obesity Effectively in Students (HEROES)
Mainstreaming
Nutrition Initiative
Partnership to Promote Physical Activity
and Healthy Eating in AME Churches
Self-Determination for Increasing Physical Activity
South Carolina American Legacy Empowerment Evaluation Project (SCALE)
South Carolina Food Stamp
Nutrition Education Demonstration
South Carolina Hispanic/Latino Health Coalition
Stories from Graniteville: Ethnographic
Interviews Designed to Capture the Experiences of Community Residents
Women's Well-being Initiative
Arnold School: Becoming an Engaged Institution and Eliminating Health Disparities
This Arnold SPH project is sponsored by Community-Campus Partnerships for Health and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The Arnold SPH was selected as one of 12 graduate programs in public health to participate in the engaged institutions initiative. The Arnold SPH team includes, Dean Richter, faculty, staff, graduate students, and several community partners. The initiative has two interrelated goals: (1) to build the capacity of Arnold SPH to fully realize its potential as an engaged institutions focused on eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities; and (2) to build the capacity of community partners to develop authentic partnerships with Arnold SPH to address racial and ethnic health disparities. Contact Dr. Heather Brandt for additional information.
Cancer Prevention and Control Program

Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies
The Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies at USC promotes and coordinates multi-disciplinary research related to Latinos in South Carolina and the Southeast. Through its various activities the Consortium fulfills the University's mission to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of all state residents.
Duke Endowment Wellness
Initiative

Funded by the
Duke
Endowment, the goal of this project is to enhance the environments of 30
children's homes in North and South Carolina to promote physical activity
and improve nutrition among the children's homes' residents. The primary
strategies are identification and training of children's homes' wellness
teams, on-going consultation and support for wellness teams, and enhancing
organizational support for these organizational changes. The project also
includes extensive evaluation and measurement, including assessments of
individual physical activity and dietary behavior, observation of children's
homes' environments and organizational policies and practices, assessment of
organizational and environmental change through key informant interview, and
qualitative assessments of wellness team activities. Please contact
Dr. Ruth
Saunders, Principal Investigator on the project, for additional information.
Healthy Eating Reduces Obesity Effectively in Students (HEROES)
This emerging collaboration builds on the existing Zest Quest® model of school wellness programs to improve the school nutrition environment through partnerships with school districts and their contractors. Dr. Douglas Winesett, pediatrician at Greenville Children's Hospital Center for Digestive Health, has led the effort to build on Zest Quest's community investments in upstate South Carolina. Please contact Dr. Sonya Jones, the Co-Investigator at USC, for additional information.
The Mainstreaming Nutrition Initiative is funded by the World Bank to catalyze the integration of priority nutrition actions into health sector policies and programs worldwide. It is a collaborative effort among the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), the Program in International Nutrition at Cornell University, and other partners. Dr. Edward Frongillo at USC is the Principal Investigator for the US‑based portion of the effort. In the first year of the project, we are reviewing the evidence for integrating nutrition interventions within various maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) policies and programs. This will lead to the development of a framework, tools and strategies to facilitate the mainstreaming process in different countries and different policy and program contexts. Other project activities in Year 1 include a global review of nutrition interventions led by ICDDR,B and Aga Khan University, which will contribute to the forthcoming Lancet series on nutrition. A series of reviews on critical issues confronted by nutrition programs has also been commissioned. The reviews will address such questions as: what are the barriers to accessing health and nutrition services, current issues in growth monitoring and promotion, challenges to scaling up exclusive breast feeding promotion programs, and targeting of supplementary feeding. In addition, the mainstreaming nutrition team is working with the Department of Child and Adolescent Health of the World Health Organization on a related project, and this past summer assisted the Gates Foundation on the development of its forthcoming global nutrition strategy.
Partnership to Promote Physical Activity and Healthy Eating in AME Churches
The major goals of this study are to partner with African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches to promote moderate-intensity physical activity and healthy dietary practices using a community-based participatory research model. Dr. Ruth Saunders at USC is a member of the intervention planning group and facilitator of process evaluation planning. This research is being funded by the National Institutes of Health-National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
This project, being funded by National Institutes of Health-National Child Health and Human Development, is testing the effectiveness of a 6-month student-centered, after school program on physical activity in an under-served adolescent population. The intervention will be conducted in 12 middle schools in South Carolina; 12 additional middle schools, providing a typical after-school program, will serve as controls. Dr. Ruth Saunders at USC is a member of the intervention team and taking the lead on process evaluation planning for the intervention.
South Carolina American Legacy Empowerment Evaluation Project (SCALE)

South Carolina Food Stamp Nutrition Education Demonstration

The aim of this project is to capitalize on existing data and programming resources in the State of South Carolina to provide information about the effectiveness of Food Stamp Nutrition Education in changing food stamp households' purchasing patterns for fruits and vegetables. The Budget and Control Board, Department of Social Services and Office of Public Health Nutrition are each contributing to the collaboration for this exciting study. Dr. Sonya Jones at USC is involved in the policy, implementation, and evaluation components of the project.
Please visit the following websites for additional information:
http://www.scdhec.gov/health/proservices/nutrition/
http://www.healthyhelpings.org/food_stamp.htm
South Carolina Hispanic/Latino Health Coalition

Stories from Graniteville: Ethnographic Interviews Designed to Capture the Experiences of Community Residents
The goal of this project is to capture Graniteville (SC) community residents’ personal experiences (i.e., “stories”) regarding the impact of the Norfolk Southern train accident and subsequent chlorine leak which occurred on January 6, 2005. Data collection methods include personal interviews with community members and observational site visits. The collection of personal stories will be assembled in a format (e.g., booklet, museum quality display, and/or framed pages) suitable for giving back to the Graniteville community for public display and/or for distributing to wider audiences statewide and nationally. Ultimately, the purpose of collecting and giving back residents’ stories is to promote community rebuilding and cohesion in the wake of the devastating tragedy that occurred. Dr. Sara Corwin (HPEB) and Dr. Lee Pearson from the Arnold School of Public Health are Co-PIs on this project.

Well-being is conceived of broadly to include mental and physical health, social, economic, and spiritual well-being. The primary aims of the Initiative are to enhance and facilitate:
- university-community partnerships
- collaborations across disciplines (sciences, social sciences, humanities)
- critical perspectives and approaches to the promotion of well-being that incorporate the full diversity of women's experiences across race, class, age, ethnicity and other dimensions of difference.






