2020 Research Day on Teaching Kitchens and Self Care Practices

Harvard School Of Public Health, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

This R-13 Grant application requests support for the conference entitled 2020 Research Day on Teaching Kitchens and Related Self-Care Practices to be held at the 1440 Multiversity campus in Santa Cruz, California on April 21-22, 2020. This will be the second time this conference is being offered and will, once again, be sponsored by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan) Department of Nutrition on behalf of the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative (TKC), an initiative launched in 2016 by Harvard Chan and The Culinary Institute of America (CIA). The inaugural 2018 TKC Research Day was generously funded through an R13 grant from the NCCIH (Grant # 1 R13 AT009822-01) and was highly successful. During the time since the last conference in February 2018, there has been a dramatic increase in research relating to the use of teaching kitchen models and we expect many more research submissions for the 2020 Research Day on Teaching Kitchens. This growing field is of interest to the medical, scientific, corporate and public health communities due to its interdisciplinary nature and potential to address the needs of a range of patient populations with chronic disease or enhanced risk of chronic disease. The educational components of most teaching kitchens include:(1) food and nutrition education; (2) cooking and culinary instruction; (3) enhanced movement and exercise; (4) mindfulness practices; (5) use of web-based and IT devices; and (6) strategies to optimize behavioral change. The planning for the conference will be directed by an Organizing Committee who will be responsible for the conference program, finance, fundraising, communications, and logistics for this research conference. Proposals for original research will be solicited in the form of oral and poster presentations, panel discussions, and breakout sessions. All submissions will undergo peer-review for quality, timeliness, and fit with the overall program, in a process conducted by the Scientific Review Committee comprised of researchers from the TKC. We will employ a blinded review process whereby submitted abstracts will be reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers with relevant expertise. Researchers will present their original work relating to teaching kitchen curricula and research with the purpose of advancing the design, methodology, implementation and evaluation of teaching kitchen programs as applied to individuals with increased risk of chronic disease and other populations seeking to enhance health and wellness. In this 2020 TKC Research Day we will focus on: 1) Best Practices; 2) Research Methods; 3) Scalability and 4) Demonstration projects to establish evidence of changes in (a) relevant behaviors; (b) biomarkers; (c) clinical outcomes; and/or (d) costs of health care. These key areas parallel the TKC's existing working groups and are thought to be essential to the further maturation and evaluation of emerging Teaching Kitchen models across the US and globally; and, are likely to be of interest to a broad range of NIH funded investigators from multiple disciplines.