Keelia O'Malley

Tulane University | TU · Department of Social Behavioral and Population Sciences

The feasibility of working with neighborhood corner stores to increase the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables in low-income neighborhoods in New Orleans was assessed. Household interviews and 24-hour dietary recalls (n = 97), corner store customer intercept interviews (n = 60) and interviews with corner store operators (owners/managers) (n...

Background: Carbon footprints of vegetarian, pescatarian, and other popular diets have been studied previously, but mostly as idealized versions modeled to meet dietary recommendations. Less is known about the footprints of popular diets as they are consumed by US adults, and thus the potential trade-offs with diet quality for free-living individu...

Background The provision of food aid after a natural disaster is necessary to prevent hunger, particularly in low-resourced and low-income communities. Little is known about the operational challenges associated with ensuring equitable distribution of emergency food resources to communities in need following a disaster. To address this gap, this st...

Changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) occurred in 2009 when supplemental foods offered through the programme were updated to align with current dietary recommendations. The present study reports on a new index developed to monitor the retail environment's adoption of these new food supply requi...

Concern for the environment when making dietary choices has grown as the contribution of the food sector to global greenhouse gas emissions becomes more widely known. Understanding the correlates of beef eating could assist in the targeting of campaigns to reduce the consumption of high-impact foods. The objective of this study was to identify the...

Objectives Growing evidence indicates the need for demand-side changes to global food systems to meet nutritional needs while staying within planetary boundaries. Previous research documented the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE, or carbon footprint) of self-selected diets in the US from the 2005–2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey...

This study assessed relationships of duration of family Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) participation with racial/ethnic disparities in child sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) and water intake. Child beverage intake and family duration on WIC were collected during three cross-sectional surveys of WIC-partic...

Objective: To evaluate if children of families with a longer duration of participation in the Special Supple-mentation Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children(WIC) consume fewer sugar-sweetened bever-ages (SSB) and more water. Design: A repeated cross-sectional study. Setting: Conducted among representative samples of WIC-participating f...

Purpose To compare the dietary quality among adolescents who skip lunch and those who do not and explore associations between school-level variables, demographic variables and lunch skipping. Design Cross-sectional Setting Public schools in New Orleans, Louisiana (n = 21) Participants 718 adolescents Methods Adolescents participated in a 24-hou...

Objectives Persistent problems of poor diets and food insecurity call for novel approaches. In New Orleans, there was a tremendous surge in citizen involvement and social innovation after Hurricane Katrina. In the food sector, this work focused on improving food access and healthy eating by developing new organizations or transforming existing ones...

Introduction: A healthy diet is key in preventing chronic diseases and black adults have higher rates of hypertension, obesity, and heart disease death rates compared to their white counterparts. Because dietary habits track from adolescence to adulthood, it is important to understand dietary habits of adolescents. This study aimed to examine the d...

Background: To assess how perceptions of the community built environment influence support for community policies that promote physical activity (PA). Methods: A national cross-sectional survey assessed perceptions of the local built environment and support of community policies, including school and workplace policies, promoting PA. A random di...

Objectives: The food system contributes substantially to current environmental problems, which has prompted researchers to evaluate both environmental as well as nutritional impacts of dietary choices. However, there has been no research on the impacts of popular diets as consumed in the US. This study estimated the carbon footprint and diet quali...

The school lunch salad bar (SB) is a recommended food environmental strategy to increase access to, and consumption of fruit and vegetables (F/V). In a study to examine use of school lunch SBs, middle and high school students provided data via the Automated Self-Administered 24-h dietary recall (24HDR) tool for kids (ASA24-Kids-2012), a web-based d...

Background: Consumption levels of fruits and vegetables (F/V) among children/adolescents are low. Programs like school-based salad bars (SB) provide children/adolescents increased F/V access. Aims: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between SB use and individual and school-level factors among elementary and secondary schoo...

This study examines how the consumption of fruits and vegetables is affected by home cooking habits and shopping patterns, including distance to patronized stores and frequency of shopping, in two low-income predominantly African American urban neighborhoods in New Orleans, Louisiana. In-person interviews were conducted in 2013 with 901 adult resid...

Background: Objectives The objective of this study was to identify demographic, social and structural factors associated with intake of fruit and vegetables in older adults in New Orleans, Louisiana. DesignA crosssectional randomly sampled, address-based telephone survey of households in Orleans Parish, Louisiana was conducted with the household’s...

Purposes/Objectives Fruit and vegetable (F/V) consumption may aid in childhood obesity prevention. F/V consumption in youth is low. School-based salad bars (SBs) may improve F/V access in youth. The purpose of this study was to explore administrative and school nutrition personnel perspectives related to adoption and continued implementation of SB...

Childhood obesity continues to be a public health problem in the United States. Increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables (F/V) is one strategy for decreasing high consumption of energy-dense, high-fat foods, thereby improving weight status. Many Orleans Parish public schools were provided with salad bars (SBs) to augment school lunch with in...

Background: Fresh fruit and vegetables are important components of a healthy diet. Distance to a supermarket has been associated with the ability to access fresh produce. Methods: A randomly sampled telephone survey was conducted with the main shopper for 3000 households in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2011. Individuals were asked where and how oft...

Introduction: Having a supermarket in close proximity may be important to a healthy diet. New Orleans is known to be underserved in the number of supermarkets. Food consumption and shopping patterns were examined in two low-income neighborhoods without a supermarket. Methods: In-person interviews were conducted between October 2012 and April 2013...

Childhood obesity is a major public health issue in the United States. Fruit and vegetable consumption has been examined as one component of childhood obesity. School-based salad bars have been proposed as a mechanism for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in youth. The aim of this study was to examine factors (demographics, knowledge, pref...

To examine the effect of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food package changes on availability of healthy foods in small stores. Pre-post comparison group design with repeat in-store observations. New Orleans. Small stores (n = 102; 77% of total) were visited in 2009. Of these, 91% were observed agai...

Purpose: To examine support for local policies encouraging physical activity and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics by physical activity and weight status of respondents across U.S. counties. Design: We used a random-digit-dial, computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) to conduct a cross-sectional telephone questionnaire in s...

The built environment has been shown to be an important factor that influences physical activity levels and lifestyles of individuals in various settings. Support for policies that result in a health-promoting built environment may be influenced by individuals' perceptions of their local built environment. A random-digit-dialed, telephone interview...

Around 17% of American children are obese. A contributing factor to obesity is low consumption of fruits and vegetables. Children will likely not meet fruit and vegetable consumption recommendations when access is limited and quality is poor. The school environment is an important setting where children's dietary choices can be evaluated. Providi...

Barriers to fresh produce consumption are of growing concern, particularly in urban settings. Many studies examine this in relation to children and the general adult population; however, older adults' ability to access fresh produce may present a unique challenge. The present study examines factors related to fresh produce consumption in adults ove...

Background: Much recent literature has focused on food access, specifically geographic proximity to supermarkets, and individual consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. Fresh produce consumption by persons living with low access to fresh food should therefore depend on the availability of transportation for grocery shopping. This study parses t...

Policy‐makers are increasingly interested in the issue of healthy food access, but little attention has been paid to how demand‐side policies could affect the food environment. This research, based on a natural experiment, examines whether changes to the WIC Program food package influenced the retail environment of food stores in New Orleans. Basel...