I. Public Health Nutrition
I am interested in maternal health literacy, and health communication and promotion in low-income communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Applying the tools of epidemiology, I aim to assess the determinants of poor maternal and child health outcomes, including but not limited to dietary diversity, maternal and infant nutritional status, and maternal access to health information. I use mixed methods to conduct interdisciplinary work that critically constructs research questions aimed to address the inequalities and injustices that shape the social determinants of health for women and children. The long-term goal for my research in public health nutrition is to co-formulate, through community engaged research, suitable and sustainable nutrition education solutions to improve the health outcomes of women and children in sub-Saharan Africa.
II. Clinical Nutrition Research
I aim to combine my knowledge and expertise in nutrition and dietetics with my skills in epidemiology to design clinical nutrition projects that aim to improve health care delivery to patients. These include continuous professional development workshops for healthcare providers, and assessment of nutritional status, health literacy, and health disparities among patients. Currently, I have conducted research examining Ghanaian clinical nutrition professional’s knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding enteral and parenteral nutrition support delivery, and curated professional development workshops to help bridge identified gaps. I aim to continue to collaborate with the leadership of the Ghana Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics as they developed standard guidelines for the delivery of nutrition support services in the clinical setting in Ghana.
III. Feminist Health Studies
My research intentionally engages and employs feminist thinking to examine the lived and intersubjective experiences of women and the structures of marginalization that leave them underserved. Using focus group discussions, I identified that patriarchal norms, including spousal control, coercion, and financial abuse, coupled with inadequate social safety nets and language translation services, affected women’s access and adherence to nutrition education guidelines. These observations reiterate the fact that complex structures and social relations are the fundamental basis of health disparities. Using critical theory, I aim to continue to employ these approaches in my health studies to help answer important questions about interpersonal and systemic discrimination, as well as invite women to become active participants in their empowerment. I am also interested in questions of reproductive justice, specifically, the impact of transnational currents of reproductive travel on access to assisted reproductive technologies for women in the global south.
IV. Feminist Food Studies
The social roles that food performs are complexly intertwined with identity and meaning making; making food a question of political subjectivity and a practical subject for critical cultural inquiry about gender relations, class formation, and capitalistic determinants of health. My project therefore aims to use feminist theory to examine subjective notions of food coupled with the formation of gendered beauty ideals, and how these have played key roles in creating technologies that produce and profit from dysmorphia. I share reflexive pieces from my work not only in academic journals, but also on my personal blog and social media pages, as essays, and poetry.