THE PROJECT Healthy dietary intake can play an important role in protecting against obesity and chronic disease in the U.S. Access to healthy food is particularly important for Latinx communities as an opportunity to lower some of the highest rates of chronic disease and disease risk nationwide. Understanding factors related to improving healthy nutrition and developing culturally-appropriate population-level interventions are critical to improve health. Yet, health research is often limited by lack of measurement tools that are specific, appropriate, and valid for all populations. While many factors influence the ability to improve healthy nutrition, food consumed at home accounts for half of all food expenditures among US adults, and 74% of food expenditures among SNAP participants. However, few valid home food environment assessment tools exist and none have been validated with large, Spanish-speaking or English-speaking populations with low literacy (i.e., limited understanding/use of the written form of oneâ™s native language). The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable tool to assess the home food environment among Latinx populations, address utility with low-literacy populations and use cutting-edge app-based technology.
PROJECT COORDINATOR/SUPERVISOR The Project Coordinator/Supervisor will be a key contact with community partners. They will serve as a data collection lead, supervising staff members involved in data collection, managing the collection of data in the field and engaging in data analysis and dissemination of findings. They will be responsible for developing and revising protocols, reviewing and cleaning data collected by all research team members and providing continued training with staff. The Project Coordinator will also be involved in screening interested participants for the study and assigning work to data collection team leads. They will create reports for compliance such as the Data Safety and Monitory Reports, the IRB renewals, and the NIH RPPR reports. They will have the opportunity to be involved in data analysis and will inform dissemination plans and contribute to dissemination of research findings.
DUTIES WILL INCLUDE:
Data collection and supervision (50%)
Lead staff by setting priorities, developing procedures, assigning work, and maintaining schedules.
Manage the recruitment and retention of study participants, including screening all interested study participants for eligibility, serving as the main contact and keeping them informed about the study.
Oversee all data collection visits for all study teams.
Supervise study staff members and undergraduate students, including participating in hiring, training and evaluating performance.
Lead a data collection team to conduct data collection visits with participants in their homes during a time that is convenient for them (e.g., evenings, days, and weekends) and comply with COVID-19 precautions.
Explain the research study and obtain consent from research participants.
Collect quantitative data including height and weight measurements and collect data from research participants about the food they have in their homes.
Collect qualitative data including conducting cognitive interviews with research participants to gain insight into their thought processes around completing the data collection instruments.
Conduct data collection and screening in Spanish or English, depending on the native language of participants.
Coordinate with community (10%)
Serve as the key liaison and contact between research participants, the research team, and community partners.
Work with community partners to design recruitment plans and disseminate research findings.
Plan and conduct community advisory board meetings with assistance from staff and investigators.
Project Management (10%)
Responsible for compliance including informed consent, confidentiality, interactions with research participants, training and security of lab space.
Develop and revise protocols for data collection home visits, data entry, and quality control.
Contribute to paper and electronic survey development and design.
Develop study recruitment materials.
Prepare documents for regulatory approval (Institutional Review Board materials approval and continuing review, National Institute of Health annual reports)
Data management (20%)
Oversee staff data cleaning and entry into a REDCap electronic database.
Reconcile data that are double-entered.
Perform quality assurance on all data collection and reconcile any errors.
Perform retraining with staff as needed to ensure accuracy based on the quality assurance.
Data Analysis and Dissemination (10%)
Analyze the qualitative data that was collected as part of the cognitive interviews.
Analyze quantitative data on home food availability.
Prepare reports and summaries of the data that are collected and share with the study team.
Compile reports and make recommendations about changes to the electronic data collection form.
Contribute to study publications by writing up data collection procedures and other areas as requested.
Other duties may also be assigned given project needs and the applicantâ™s interests and expertise
Other duties
Complete all required IRB, UMN and study specific trainings.
Attend project meetings.
Other duties may also be assigned given project needs and the applicantâ™s interests and expertise.
All required qualifications must be documented on application materials
Required Qualifications:
Masterâ™s degree and 3 years of related experience, or BS/BA and 5 years of related experience.
Fluency in oral and written English and Spanish.
Community engagement experience
Desired Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
Flexibility in scheduling (e.g., willingness to work evenings, days and weekends).
Willingness to work on a team to complete data collection visits with research participants in their homes during a time that is convenient for them (e.g., evenings, days, and weekends) and comply with COVID-19 precautions.
Organized, committed to completing tasks fully and on time, and display professional skills in inter-professional interactions
Preferred Qualifications:
Masterâ™s degree in nutrition, psychology, health education, or related health or social science field.
Data collection experience as part of a research study.
Experience collecting research data in English and Spanish.
Experience with public health research.
Experience conducting interviews with research participants using standard protocols
The University of Minnesota, founded in the belief that all people are enriched by understanding, is dedicated to the advancement of learning and the search for truth; to the sharing of this knowledge through education for a diverse community; and to the application of this knowledge to benefit the people of the state, the nation, and the world.