Browsing by Author "Cook, Natalie E."

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
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    Accessing Virginia Market Sectors: Establishing a Market Perspective
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Discusses marketing perspective, and emphasizes the importance of understanding the market, before investing lots of time, effort and money.
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    Accessing Virginia's College & University Market Sector: Fresh Produce Food Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Highlights from a 2015-2016 market assessment survey are discussed in this document.
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    Accessing Virginia's Hospital Market Sector: Fresh Produce Food Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Discusses hospitals as a potential market for locally grown foods and products. Identifies school purchasing priorities, and some of the likely barriers to purchasing.
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    Accessing Virginia's Market Sectors: Fresh Produce Purchasing Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-17)
    Discusses the results of a survey of colleges and universities, direct-to-consumer markets, hospitals, public schools, restaurants, retailers and regional wholesalers.
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    Accessing Virginia's Public School (K-12) Market Sector: Fresh Produce Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Discusses public schools as a potential market for locally grown foods and products. Identifies school purchasing priorities, and some of the likely barriers to purchasing.
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    Accessing Virginia's Regional Wholesale Market Sector: Fresh Produce Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-17)
    Discusses wholesale market distributors and regional food hubs, and how to market locally grown food crops to them. Also notes the results of a 2015-2016 a Virginia statewide market assessment survey.
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    Accessing Virginia’s Restaurant Market Sector: Fresh Produce Food Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber D.; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-17)
    Despite the growing demand and support for local food, there can often be significant barriers for growers trying to tap into new markets, given specific food safety expectations, policies, and requirements. This trend is particularly true for institutional buyers, who are often constrained by far-reaching institutional and/or corporate policies. While there are lots of market opportunities in Virginia, navigating the landscape for growers can be daunting, since buyer food safety requirements are not a “one size fits all” standard for all markets. To better understand current expectations and perceptions across multiple market sectors in Virginia, and help producers better align their on-farm practices with these marketplaces, the Fresh Produce Food Safety Team conducted a state-wide market assessment survey in 2015-2016. The purpose of this factsheet is to provide you with the results of that work, especially if you are considering selling produce to restaurants.
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    Accessing Virginia’s Retail Market Sector: Fresh Produce Food Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber D.; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Despite the growing demand and support for local food, there can often be significant barriers for growers trying to tap into new markets, given specific food safety expectations, policies, and requirements. This trend is particularly true for institutional buyers, who are often constrained by far-reaching institutional and/or corporate policies. While there are lots of market opportunities in Virginia, navigating the landscape for growers can be daunting, since buyer food safety requirements are not a “one size fits all” standard for all markets. To better understand current expectations and perceptions across multiple market sectors in Virginia, and help producers better align their on-farm practices with these marketplaces, the Fresh Produce Food Safety Team conducted a state-wide market assessment survey in 2015-2016. The purpose of this factsheet is to provide you with the results of that work, especially if you are considering selling produce to retailers.
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    Aligning Cultural Responsiveness in Evaluation and Evaluation Capacity Building: A Needs Assessment with Family Support Programs
    Cook, Natalie E. (Virginia Tech, 2016-01-08)
    Family support programs serve vulnerable families by providing various forms of support, such as education, health services, financial assistance, and referrals to community resources. A major feature of evaluation involves assessing program effectiveness and learning from evaluation findings (Mertens and Wilson, 2012). Collaboration and cultural responsiveness are important topics in evaluation which remain largely distinct in the literature. However, evaluation capacity building provides a context for exploring possible intersections. Data about seven programs were collected via semi-structured interviews and document analysis. This study revealed that the program leaders feel that their programs are unique, complex, and misunderstood. The findings also suggest that program leaders believe that evaluation is important for program improvement and funding. Although participants did not anticipate evaluation capacity building and did not readily express a desire to develop their own evaluation skills, participants from all seven programs enthusiastically expressed interest in evaluation capacity building once explained. Although participants did not discuss cultural responsiveness as it relates to race, they expressed a need to overcome a community culture of reluctance to participate in programs and aversion to educational pursuits. Given the programs' shared population of interest, similar outcomes, and common challenges, evaluation capacity building in a group setting may give Roanoke family support program leaders the evaluation knowledge, skills, and peer support to engage in program evaluation that is both collaborative and culturally responsive.
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    Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) as a Vehicle for Social Transformation: Conceptualizing Transformative ECB and Kaleidoscopic Thinking
    Cook, Natalie E. (Virginia Tech, 2020-02-18)
    Program evaluation has become an increasingly urgent task for organizations, agencies, and initiatives that have the obligation or motivation to measure program outcomes, demonstrate impact, improve programming, tell their program story, and justify new or continued funding. Evaluation capacity building (ECB) is an important endeavor not only to empower program staff to understand, describe, and improve their programs, but also to enable programs to effectively manage limited resources. Accountability is important as public funds for social programs continue to dwindle and program administrators must do their best to fulfill their program missions in ethical, sustainable ways despite insufficient resources. While ECB on its own valuable, as it can promote evaluative thinking and help build staff's evaluation literacy and competency, ECB presents a ripe opportunity for program staff to understand the principles of equity and inclusivity and to see themselves as change agents for societal transformation. In the present study, I developed, tested, and evaluated the concept of transformative ECB (TECB), a social justice-oriented approach, rooted in culturally responsive evaluation, critical adult education, and the transformative paradigm, which promotes not only critical and evaluative thinking, but also kaleidoscopic thinking. Kaleidoscopic thinking (KT) is thinking that centers social justice and human dignity through intentional consideration (turning of the kaleidoscope) of multiple perspectives and contexts while attending to the intersectional planes of diversity, such as culture, race, gender identity, age, belief system, and socioeconomic status. KT involves reflexivity, creativity, respect for diversity, compassion and hope on the part of the thinker when examining issues and making decisions.
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    A mixed methods investigation of how young adults in Virginia received, evaluated, and responded to COVID-19 public health messaging
    Cook, Natalie E.; Wenzel, Sophie; Silverman, Rachel A.; Short, Danielle; Jiles, Kristina A.; Markwalter, Teresa; Friesen, Mary Ann (2022-09-22)
    The purpose of this study was to investigate how young adults in Virginia received, evaluated, and responded to messages related to the coronavirus/COVID-19, a major disruptor of our time, and to understand how and when these messages influenced behavior. This was a sequential explanatory mixed methods study, including an online survey (quantitative) and virtual focus groups (qualitative). We surveyed a convenience sample of 3,694 Virginia residents by distributing a link to complete the survey online. Only data from18-24 year old adults (n=207) were included in the analysis for this study. Focus group participants were recruited from the survey participants as well as from a college-level introductory health class. Most (83%) young adult respondents reported national science and health organizations as a trusted source for COVID-19 information and over 50% of respondents reported getting information from state/local health departments (72%), healthcare professionals (71%), and online news sources (51%). Focus group participants emphasized social media as an additional major source of COVID-19 information. Focus group data revealed that young adults struggled with deciphering contradictory messaging, had a mix of logical and emotional reasons for deciding whether to adhere to guidelines, had a desire for consistent, fact-based public health messaging at the national level. The findings from this study underscore the importance of consistent, positive public health messaging in a public health crisis.
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    Neighborhood historical redlining, present-day social vulnerability and sports and recreational injury hospitalizations in the United States
    Ogunmayowa, Oluwatosin Thompson (Virginia Tech, 2023-07-14)
    Historical redlining, a discriminatory practice of the 1930s, present-day social vulnerability (SVI), and sports and recreational injury (SRI) hospitalizations are interconnected topics that highlight the intersection of race, class, and health in the United States but the relationships have not been studied to date. Thus, the overall aim of this dissertation is to examine the effects of historical redlining and present-day social vulnerability on SRI hospitalizations in the United States. The first study systematically reviewed studies that examined the relationships between neighborhood characteristics and SRI using multilevel modeling approach. Studies reviewed show that certain neighborhood factors, such as living in urban communities, were associated with increased risk of SRI. The second study examined the association between historical redlining and present-day neighborhood SVI in the United States. Results show that formerly redlined areas have higher SVI presently. The third study examined the association between historical redlining and present-day SRI hospitalization in the United States. Results show that redlining was not associated with increased odds of SRI hospitalizations, but was associated with longer length of hospital stay (LOS) among Black and Hispanic patients, and higher total hospital charges among Hispanic patients. The fourth study examined the association between individual and neighborhood social vulnerability and sports and recreation-related traumatic brain injury (SR-TBI) hospitalizations among pediatric patients in the United States. Results show that Native American children had higher odds of hospitalization for SR-TBI, longer LOS, but lower odds of discharge to post-acute care compared to White children. Older age was associated with higher odds of hospitalization and longer LOS while male sex was associated with shorter LOS for SR-TBI in children. Compared to children with private insurance, children with public insurance had longer LOS while uninsured children had shorter LOS. Also, hospitalization in neighborhood with higher overall SVI was associated with longer LOS. This study advances our knowledge on the impact of structural racism on present-day SRI outcomes and will inform policy makers to prioritize health equity by addressing the underlying social determinants of health and the root causes of disparities in SRI outcomes.
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    Understanding the Relationship between Food Security and Mental Health for Food-Insecure Mothers in Virginia
    Liebe, Rachel A.; Adams, Leah M.; Hedrick, Valisa E.; Serrano, Elena L.; Porter, Kathleen J.; Cook, Natalie E.; Misyak, Sarah A. (MDPI, 2022-04-02)
    Food insecurity, which disproportionately impacts mothers, can have chronic consequences on physical and mental health. There is a relationship between food insecurity and mental health, but the relationship’s mechanisms are unclear. This study aimed to understand how mental health outcomes differ by food insecurity severity and race among Virginia mothers. A cross-sectional survey employed previously validated food security status measures, physical and mental health, social support, and food coping strategies. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman’s rank-order correlations, linear regression, and chi-squared with effect sizes. Overall, respondents (n = 1029) reported worse mental health than the U.S. average (44.3 ± 10.1 and 50, respectively). There was a large effect of food security on mental health (d = 0.6), with worse mental health outcomes for mothers experiencing very low food security (VLFS) than low food security (LFS; p < 0.001). There was a small effect of race on mental health (φc = 0.02), with Black mothers having better mental health than White mothers (p < 0.001). Compared to mothers experiencing LFS, mothers experiencing VLFS had less social support (d = 0.5) and used more food coping strategies, especially financial strategies (d = −1.5; p < 0.001). This study suggests that food-insecure mothers experience stressors and lack adequate social support, which is even more distinct for mothers experiencing VLFS.