Dr. Megan Knapp conducts research related to factors that impact food environments, food security, and food access and choice.
Dr. Megan Knapp conducts research related to factors that impact food environments, food security, and food access and choice. Supporting healthy eating patterns through improving access and availability healthy foods is one key strategy for addressing health disparities and reducing negative health outcomes such as cancer, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. She has utilized both primary and secondary quantitative and qualitative data in her research. Working with community-based programs and organizations, she has developed methods and tools for evaluating programs and policies to improve nutrition environments.
Currently, Dr. Knapp is working on research that address food security in early childhood settings and schools. One project examines the impact ofCOVID-19 on federally funded school feeding programs in Orleans parish. Thisresearch has been supported WK Kellogg Foundation and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number TL4GM118968. In addition, she is conducting an evaluation of a newly passed children’s menu healthy default beverage policy in New Orleans, Louisiana. This policy aims to create healthier restaurant environments and reduce sugar sweetened beverage consumption among children. Baseline data collection for the healthy default beverage policy evaluation is supported by NIMHD of the National Institutes of Health under grant number U54MD007595. She also recently completed a research project examining the ability of a restaurant-based program to improve access to and availability of healthy foods and influence customer food choices.
In her role as Assistant Professor at Xavier University of Louisiana, a top performing historically Black university, she teaches research methodology and nutrition courses focused on developing critical thinking and research skills among the next generation of public health practitioners and researchers.
Education: PhD, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
MPH, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health
BA, Southwestern University
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8575-9101
My NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/18c0ANlNCOmAt/bibliography/public/
Food security; nutrition; food access
