Anna Adachi-Mejia, Ph.D.
Dartmouth College
Junior Investigator, Healthy Eating Research (Obesity Team)
Project Title: Assessing the Impact of School Vending Machine Policies on Rural Adolescent Beverage Consumption
"The New Connections award has offered me a tremendous opportunity to develop new professional collaborations as I refine my own areas of investigation as an independent researcher. Within only the first few months of receiving the award, I was launched into a productive trajectory facilitated by the mentoring workshop and formal mentoring partnership supported by receiving this award. I am currently involved in five different studies, of which I am a principal investigator on three and am managing a staff of nine survey administrators."
Project Description
Adachi-Mejia's study aims to analyze the impact of school vending machine policies on adolescent beverage consumption in predominantly rural high schools across New Hampshire and Vermont.
Using data from an ongoing National Institute of Environmental Health Science study that she is involved in that is analyzing over 2,000 adolescents from 38 middle and high schools, Adachi-Mejia will examine the natural variation in school vending machine policies and content and determine whether beverage options in school vending machines influence adolescents' beverage consumption.
She will compare school beverage vending machine guidelines, restrictions, implementation and content; and evaluate the influence of the school beverage vending machine environment on adolescent beverage consumption. Compared to younger grades, high schools have the most flexibility regarding developing policies for beverage vending machine content and access.
The ongoing National Institute of Environment Health Science's study of adolescent obesity presents an ideal opportunity to examine the natural variation in middle and high school vending machine policies and content, and to determine the extent to which beverage options in school vending machines influence adolescents' beverage consumption. To date, no studies have examined these questions.
A wide range of stakeholders will potentially benefit from this study, including students, their parents, school staff/administration (e.g., principals, coaches, nurses, food service directors), school districts, physicians and policy-makers.
School districts will directly benefit from understanding the impact of their wellness policy on student beverage consumption, and schools will be able to learn about the key factors that have been successful in other schools. Parents will benefit from information on vending machine content, locations, hours and revenue generated, which they currently lack.
Policy changes in schools can be implemented quickly, and can affect the health of thousands of students. School-based changes are more efficient and more economical than interventions at the individual or household level. Thus, if the data indicate that school vending machines predict consumption of beverages, her findings can be used to achieve healthful school policy change on a national scale.
Biography
Anna Adachi-Mejia, Ph.D., a research assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, is an investigator in the community health research program of the Hood Center for Children and Families (http://hoodcenter.dartmouth.edu/index.html). She received both her M.S. and her Ph.D. from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at Dartmouth Medical School.
She has extensive experience in survey research methods, specializing in telephone interviews with children and adults. Her areas of investigation include obesity and tobacco prevention in rural youth, promotion of physical activity in rural mothers and promotion of healthful eating in the workplace.
In addition to Adachi-Mejia's New Connections grant, she has received an Active Living Research grant (The Effect of Motivation, Barriers, and Perceptions of the Built Environment on Physical Activity Levels) from the RWJF.
