Undergraduate Program Stream

Supervisors: Britt McKee and Merissa Nudelman 

Project Description: 

This project will support the integration of evidence-based practices for food skills acquisition in programming for children and older adults at Ecosource’s Teaching Kitchen in Mississauga. Working in partnership with Ecosource, an environmental non-profit organization (www.ecosource.ca), the student will integrate promising practices for food skills acquisition into programming for children 6-14 years old and older adults. They will develop a repertoire of recipes designed to integrate the acquisition of food skills for at risk populations, encourage the use of garden harvest and fresh fruits & vegetables that are sourced locally, and ensure they are culturally relevant & age appropriate. They will facilitate the recipes and related knowledge transfer activities during Ecosource’s summer programming – particularly for their children’s summer camp (ages 6 to 14) and older adult cooking workshop series. The student will evaluate the effectiveness of their intervention on participants’ food skills knowledge and acquisition through a mix of quantitative & qualitative data collection and compile their results into a shareable resource. Additionally, the student will develop a resource of promising practices for food skills acquisition for older adult populations to increase staff and volunteers’ capacity to effectively support this population.  

Student tasks and responsibilities: 

• Research and compile summary report on evidence based, promising practices for food skills knowledge transfer and acquisition for older adults, particularly for those at risk of diabetes and associated cardiometabolic disease 

• Develop a repertoire of recipes using these findings that are designed to integrate the acquisition of food skills for at risk populations, encourage the use of garden harvest and fresh fruits & vegetables that are sourced locally, and ensure they are culturally relevant & age appropriate 

• Facilitate daily food skills workshops in the Teaching Kitchen for children (ages 6 to 14) during Ecosource’s summer camp program and older adult cooking workshop series.  

• Evaluate the effectiveness of the food skills workshop recipes and interventions on project participants and synthesize the findings in a final internal report 

• Develop and implement research tools, including post-program surveys, group discussion, and observations 

• Track project-related statistics, budgets and expenses, and support reporting activities as required 

• Collaborate with team members to support programs which meet the diverse food skills and food access needs of local communities using an anti-oppression and anti-racism lens 

• Note: this role is almost exclusively in-person in Mississauga 

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Supervisors: Dr. Gillian Booth 

Project Description: 

Park prescriptions are a highly promising and innovative intervention for promoting physical activity in urban populations and supporting healthy behaviour change. In doing so, park prescriptions could help address a fundamental gap in diabetes prevention efforts caused by a lack of resources and time in primary care to adequately counsel and support patients in achieving an active lifestyle. Our research will uncover methods to implement a park prescription into primary care, and will identify the components of a park prescription intervention that can encourage and motivate people to use parks and other greenspaces within their city for physical activity, particularly those from low-income and racialized communities, who stand to benefit most.   

 Our mixed-methods project seeks a summer student to aide our team in work to support the design of an app-based park prescription, which will include various activities related to a pilot feasibility study. The latter will assess how a park prescription that encourages park-based physical activity could be successfully implemented into primary care clinics in Toronto, Mississauga and various other cities.   

Student tasks and responsibilities: 

• Support a feasibility study by drafting study materials, compiling surveys and participating in workshops to identify areas for improvement, collecting and analyzing data  

• Compile preliminary findings and learnings that will ensure the success of a larger factorial study   

• Participate in co-design activities with patient and healthcare provider advisory committees  

• Work with our team and partners at the Human Environments Analysis Laboratory (Heal) as we incorporate patient and healthcare provider feedback into the design of our park prescription app  

• Analyze and combine data from park audits to be implemented into the park prescription app 

• Present findings to research team both in written, and oral formats 

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Supervisor: Dr. Kristina Kokorelias 

Project Description: 

This qualitative secondary analysis will explore the alignment and differences between Black older adults and their caregivers regarding diabetes self-management in Peel Region. Using existing interviews and data from three focus groups with older adults living with diabetes or pre-diabetes and their caregivers, the project aims to identify shared and divergent perspectives on self-management strategies, barriers to care and culturally appropriate supports.  

This study will employ a thematic analysis to compare the viewpoints of older adults and caregivers, highlighting areas of agreement and gaps that may inform the development of family-centered and culturally tailored interventions. This project is set within clinical and community contexts in Peel Region. This work will provide students with hands-on experience in qualitative analysis, applied health equity research and manuscript writing.   

Student tasks and responsibilities: 

• Conduct a thematic analysis of existing interview and co-design data from Black older adults and their caregivers  

• Compare and contrast the perspectives of older adults and caregivers on chronic disease self-management and culturally appropriate care  

• Identify barriers, facilitators and gaps in self-management strategies from both groups  

• Summarize findings and generate actionable recommendations for culturally tailored interventions  

• Participate in regular supervision meetings with the faculty member and community partners  

• Contribute to team discussions  

• Prepare a manuscript  

• Present findings 

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Supervisors: Dr. Leanne De Souza-Kenney 

Project Description: 

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like type 2 diabetes & its precursors can be prevented/delayed with lifestyle changes & building health literacy earlier in life. To date, nutrition and food education is inconsistently taught in Canadian schools. Early access to knowledge and application of fundamental topics like how to access & prepare food, & the impact of food environments on health, are imperative for making informed health choices and lifestyle changes.  

This project aims to address chronic disease prevention through nutrition, food and health literacy programming in Canadian K-12 schools. BIPOC Peel-Region educators will co-create lesson modules & surveys for grade 7/8 students. Video interviews with community partners (non-profits, scientists, etc.) will be edited & added to these modules. Qualitative interviews of parent perspectives will also be conducted through Zoom. Knowledge findings will be disseminated through briefing reports, manuscripts/abstracts, newsletters to community partners and social media for the broader community.  

This upstream, systemic mixed-methods approach targets primary & secondary NCD-prevention by leveraging the education system to build nutrition & food literacy earlier in life. 

Student tasks and responsibilities: 

• Perform well-defined, routine or repetitive data processing/analyses of descriptive data 

• Manage data into MS Excel records and generate simple, summative graphs 

• Prepare for study team meetings with research team and community partners  

• Attend regular research team meetings and sub-study teams  

• Skill development in mixed methods research, conducting and analyzing qualitative interviews, knowledge translation/dissemination for various audiences 

• Networking with community partners, and learning to do knowledge translation/dissemination work for various audiences 

• One-on-one mentorship and support with study responsibilities 

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Supervisor: Dr. David S. Gerstle 

Project Description: 

The unprecedented availability of health information via the internet demands that non-expert users can successfully search for, and critically evaluate, the materials that they need. Working with UTM Librarians, the student researcher for this project will use methods from Critical Information Literacy to assess the quality and accessibility of publicly available health information. They will focus on materials created for interventions and management of chronic illness within equity-seeking groups in the Peel Region, Ontario.  

The final deliverables of this project will be adapted for the ongoing development of the Black Canadian Health Database, housed by the University of Toronto Libraries. This database will collect reliable information (e.g. research, criticisms, advocacy) on the social determinants of health for Black Canadians. Because this resource will be freely available for public use, it is crucial that users possess guidelines for critically working with the materials they find. The student’s work will thus contribute directly to the health information literacy of researchers, patients, caregivers, and public health advocates. 

Student tasks and responsibilities: 

• Literature review and methodology (Weeks 1-2): The student will engage and synthesize the core literature of Critical Information Literacy (CIL) to help understand the proposed methodology for this project. Approximately 4-6 articles will be assigned by the supervising librarians. Broadly, CIL is a methodology within Library and Information Science promoting critical thinking on the establishment of authority and the dissemination of expert knowledge, as well as equitable access to this information and the tools to evaluate it.  

• Data collection (Weeks 3-6): Using methods distilled from the CIL literature, the student will conduct multiple, iterative searches within target databases and search engines. These will focus on the contributing factors and barriers to interventions and management of chronic illness among equity-seeking groups in the Peel Region. The literature they collect may include community publications, health advocacy, healthcare publications on illness management, or policy planning for interventions The goal is to reach a representative dataset of materials a non-expert health information seeker might generally encounter in early searches. The student can anticipate collecting 30-40 materials.  

• Data analysis (Weeks 7-10): The student will analyze this data for several variables, including: the accessibility and understandability of authors’ expertise, unbiased source material, jargon-free language, and appropriate communication to target audiences. This exercise is intended to inform the final deliverable in the project, generating recommendations for (a) critical evaluation of materials by users, and (b) best practices for authors to produce accessible and understandable materials.  

• Knowledge translation (Weeks 10-12): Finalizing the project, the student will craft outputs distilling the findings of their research (i.e. best practices for strategically searching and critically evaluating health information), aiming to make these conclusions accessible and understandable to audiences outside the health sciences. These outputs may include research presentations to the University of Toronto Library community, as well as posters or session presentations at relevant conferences. 

• Prior knowledge of standard methods of library research and health information literacy are required for this position. 

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