Elizabeth Golembiewski Presents at CDC Conference in Atlanta, GA
August 25, 2014
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Graduate Research Assistant Elizabeth Golembiewski presented at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media in Atlanta, Georgia. This conference brings together multidisciplinary research and collaboration to shape the future of health communication, marketing, and media practices. Golembiewski presented the research she did with Dr. Natoshia Akelson and the Iowa Department of Education, on how to increase participation in school breakfast among high schoolers in Iowa.
We asked Elizabeth to tell us a little more about her experience:
What is your degree / future education plans?
I just finished my MPH in Health Communication in May. I’ll be at the PPC working for one more year as a research assistant in Health Policy, and then hope to go on and start a Ph.D. in public health! I’m interested in improving access to mental health care services, especially among vulnerable populations in the US.
How long have you worked with the PPC?
I’ve worked for Dr. Natoshia Askelson (who splits her time between PPC and the College of Public Health) for over 2 years now, but officially started as a GRA at the PPC in spring 2013.
What do you do for the PPC and what studies or projects have you worked on?
Under Dr. Askelson, I work on a variety of research projects related to health communication and health promotion. Some highlights include: helping to develop statewide campaigns promoting school meals in Iowa, evaluations of government programs related to fruit and vegetable consumption and adolescent pregnancy prevention, and—most recently—conducting some formative research with automotive professionals for the national driver safety campaign. I’ve been really lucky-- working at PPC has exposed me to such a diverse and interesting range of research opportunities!
Explain what you did at the CDC National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media in Atlanta, Georgia.
I presented on a project we’ve been working on this past year with the Iowa Department of Education to increase school breakfast participation among high schoolers in Iowa. We worked directly with students at 3 high schools in Iowa to help them brainstorm and implement ways to get their peers excited about school breakfast—a sort of ‘by teens, for teens’ approach. The presentation focused on the strategies we used to engage the students and create a more effective campaign, and also the materials we developed for school food service administrators based on the input from these teens—a ‘best practices’ guide for making school breakfast more attractive and accessible to students, and a handbook on using Twitter to promote school breakfast.
How did you come across this opportunity?
Natoshia had attended this conference in years past and thought the school breakfast research would be a good fit. Our abstract was accepted, and she asked me if I wanted to be the one to present it— it was truly an honor! I am grateful to have such an amazing boss and mentor—not to mention a fun travel companion to Atlanta. All in all, presenting at the conference was a fantastic learning experience.