Social Determinants of Health

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Projects

• CDC Reducing Sodium in Communities Project

  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Public Health – Seattle & King County (PHSKC) a 5 year cooperative agreement to undertake sodium reduction efforts within King County. Through this project, PHSKC will address the barriers and challenges our communities face in healthy eating by implementing lasting and sustainable sodium reduction efforts...

  Project Lead/PI: Jessica Jones-Smith

  Research Area(s): Food & Nutrition Policy, Social Determinants of Health

• Study of Protein Transition and Amino Acids Profile in Malaysia and Indonesia

  This study explored aspects of the “protein transition” in two SE Asian countries at different levels of economic development: Malaysia and Indonesia. The study was specifically developed to understand the social aspect of the nutrition transition using qualitative and quantitative methods. Largely based on social sciences, the study will provide valuable additional insight to classical...

  Project Lead/PI: Adam Drewnowski

  Research Area(s): Global Nutrition, Social Determinants of Health

• Seattle Minimum Wage Study

  Professor Jennifer Otten and doctoral candidate James Buszkiewicz lead various sub-components of The Minimum Wage Study including examining the pass-through effects of a local minimum wage policy on supermarket food prices using field-based data collection, analyzing how state variation in minimum wage affects health outcomes using National Health Interview Survey and Bureau of Labor Statistics...

  Project Lead/PI: Jennifer Otten

  Research Area(s): Food & Nutrition Policy, Social Determinants of Health

• Moving to Health

  This study explores the impact of changing residential environment on health outcomes. The study uses well-characterized longitudinal cohort of health care users, confined to well described geographic area of WA State. By attaching a geographic context to anonymized electronic medical records (EMR) for over 320,000 adults (30,000 with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D)) and 90,000 children...

  Project Lead/PI: Adam Drewnowski

  Research Area(s): Social Determinants of Health

• Precarious Employment as a Determinant of Obesity and Cardiometabolic Risk

  Reducing obesity disparities could greatly reduce health disparities by race/ethnicity for the leading cause of death in the U.S., cardiovascular disease. Therefore, it is critical to understand the systemic causes of disparities in obesity prevalence between racial/ethnic minority adults and children, compared to their white counterparts. Precarious employment, which is often characterized by low wages,...

  Project Lead/PI: Vanessa Oddo

  Research Area(s): Social Determinants of Health

• Health Data for Action Restaurant Environment

  Restaurants are a key element of the food environment. Americans will likely spend more than $1 trillion at restaurants in 2019 (up from $825 billion in 2018). Restaurants spend billions of dollars annually in advertising to attract customers ($6.3B in 2015), and – on a typical day, one-third of Americans will eat at a fast...

  Project Lead/PI: Jessica Jones-Smith

  Research Area(s): Social Determinants of Health

• Fish, health, and vulnerable populations: Exploring the Potential for Policy and Diet Solutions

  On the US West Coast, rich and underutilized fishery resources exist alongside low income, nutritionally vulnerable populations. This pilot project aimed to examine the potential scope and mechanisms for improved utilization of available seafood to improve diets and reduce incidence of non-communicable disease burdens in poor and marginalized US coastal communities. It had the following...

  Project Lead/PI: Jennifer Otten

  Research Area(s): Food Access, Food Systems & Nutrition, Global Nutrition, Social Determinants of Health

• Evaluation of the City of Seattle’s Sweetened Beverage Tax

  In June 2017, the City of Seattle passed an Ordinance to impose a 1.75-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages. The ordinance that created the Sweetened Beverage Tax also required the City to work with academic researchers to assess the impact of the tax (Ordinance 125324, Section 5B). We have proposed to evaluate the impact of this...

  Project Lead/PI: Jessica Jones-Smith

  Research Area(s): Food & Nutrition Policy, Social Determinants of Health

• Child Care Culture of Health Study

  Investigators are evaluating how wage and wage changes might affect the culture of health in early childhood education (ECE) settings —a setting typically characterized by low wages. The researchers are examining how changes to state and city minimum wages affect the health of ECE providers, and how ECE provider health relates to the quality and...

  Project Lead/PI: Jennifer Otten

  Research Area(s): Early Care & Education, Food & Nutrition Policy, Social Determinants of Health

• Collaborative on Obesity Research and Action (CORA)

  The Collaborative on Obesity Research & Action (CORA) is a consortium of Seattle-area scientists who study, treat, and prevent obesity and related chronic diseases. Our members are based at the University of Washington, Children’s Research Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, VA Puget Sound, and Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute. CORA is convened by Jessica...

  Project Lead/PI: Jessica Jones-Smith

  Research Area(s): Social Determinants of Health

• Seattle Obesity Study III: The Food & Fitness Environment Study

  This study builds off of the previous studies (Seattle Obesity Study I and Seattle Obesity Study II), to assess whether social, economic, and environmental variables are related to diet, physical activity, and health behaviors over a 24-month period. The study population examines a diverse sample of adults across three geographically distinct counties in WA state...

  Project Lead/PI: Adam Drewnowski

  Research Area(s): Social Determinants of Health

• Seattle Obesity Study II: A Longitudinal Study on Food Environment, Diet Quality & Disparities in Obesity

  This multi-state project explored the relationship between dietary energy density, diet costs, and actual food expenditures in two groups: 120 middle-income men and women in Seattle and 120 low-income women from four California counties. Studies in Seattle developed a new tool to estimate individual diet costs, using local supermarket prices, California food prices and mean...

  Project Lead/PI: Adam Drewnowski

  Research Area(s): Social Determinants of Health

• Seattle Obesity Study I: Food Environment, Diet Quality & Disparities in Obesity

  Develop ways to offer dietary advice that takes food preferences, usual eating habits, and financial limitations into account. Helping low-income consumers obtain high-quality diets at an affordable cost may be the key strategy for stemming the obesity epidemic among the disadvantaged groups.

  Project Lead/PI: Adam Drewnowski

  Research Area(s): Food Systems & Nutrition, Social Determinants of Health

Recently Added Resources

• NW Tribal Food Sovereignty Survey Report – Food Security, Food Access, and Traditional Foods across Northwest Tribal Communities in the Wake of COVID-19

  Published June 24, 2024, this report shares findings from the NW Tribal Food Sovereignty Survey, the second wave research from a joint project between the Northwest Tribal Epidemiology Center (NWTEC), a division of the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, and the University of Washington Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health team that aims to better...

  Research Area(s): Food Access, Food Systems & Nutrition, Social Determinants of Health

• Supplemental Materials: Availability and Price of Healthy Food in Seattle by Neighborhood Sociodemographic Characteristics

  The supplementary materials for the published research study entitled, “Availability and Price of Healthy Food in Seattle by Neighborhood Sociodemographic Characteristics” are posted below. The supplemental materials describe the scoring method for the Seattle Healthy Food Survey (Supplementary Table 1), results from a secondary analysis of healthy food access across neighborhoods with different proportions of...

  Research Area(s): Food Access, Social Determinants of Health

• Washington State Food System Assessment Report

  This report was prepared for the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) and published online December 14, 2021. Titled The State of the Washington State Food System During COVID-19: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead, the report provides an in-depth assessment of the state of Washington’s food system during the COVID-19 pandemic and identifies strengths, weaknesses, and ongoing risks affecting Washington’s food system, as...

  Research Area(s): Food & Nutrition Policy, Food Access, Food Systems & Nutrition, Social Determinants of Health