Past Projects

Understanding Infrastructure Transformation Effects on Diabetes (UNITED) uses multiple sources of rich, longitudinal data to discover causal links between primary care patient-centered medical home practice redesign and improvement in the delivery of optimal diabetes care and diabetes-related utilization.

The Kids EAT! research study utilizes novel Ecological Momentary Assessment methods to identify potentially salient momentary influences on the use and impact of specific food-related parenting practices among parents of preschool-aged children.

The Community Voices for Health project explores novel methods of community engagement during COVID, and Somali community member priorities for COVID-related health research.

Clinic-based study examining the effectiveness of using 5-2-1-0 messages during well-child visits to address population-level childhood obesity.

All in the Family (MPI: Jerica Berge)

Examines the relationship between family members' weight and weight-related behaviors and adolescents' body mass index (BMI), dietary intake, and physical activity.

Family Matters seeks to identify how familial factors of racially/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse children act as risk or protective factors for predicting childhood obesity.

The Family Matters Intervention aims to change clinical practice by creating a new model of care for child weight-related health in primary care using community health workers (CHWs) as interventionists and mobile health technology to intervene in real-time on parental and family behavior.

A secondary data analysis answering important questions regarding the quality of family meals, both in regards to meal dietary healthfulness and the emotional atmosphere at the meal.

Family Meals, LIVE! (PI: Jerica Berge)

Uses innovative mixed-methods data collection (e.g., iPad video recording of family meals) to examine factors within the home food environment that are associated with risk and protective factors for childhood obesity.

Family Meals, LIVE: Sibling Edition (PI: Jerica Berge)

Examines parent feeding behaviors with more than one child in the home.

NET-Works (PI: Jerica Berge)

Integrates primary care, homes, and community-based intervention strategies to promote change in food intake, physical activity, and body weight in children.

Paha Sapa: Play it Forward (PI: Jerica Berge)

Uses the Citizen Health Care model to deliver a community-based participatory research initiative targeting childhood and adolescent obesity in the Paha Sapa Park area of Burnsville, Minnesota.

Prenatal Group Visits Study (PI: Jerica Berge)

Examines the feasibility and initial effectiveness of prenatal group visits in a family medicine residency program.

SuperShelf (Site PI: Rebekah Pratt)

Through partnerships, SuperShelf transforms food shelves to provide welcoming and respectful environments to access healthy food.

UMatter (PI: Jerica Berge)

Delivers adolescent obesity prevention/intervention to girls ages 10 to 14 and their mothers, using a health care home model in a primary care setting.

The WAGE$ study will evaluate how an increase in the local minimum wage affects the health and wellness of Minneapolis minimum-wage workers over five years.