“What I Am Thinking About Now” is an informal workshop/seminar series where faculty and graduate students present recently published works and works in progress for early-stage feedback and development.
Alison Tovar, Associate Professor, Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Center for Health Promotion and Health Equity
Empowering Families: Bridging the Communication Gap in Head Start for Childhood Health and Wellness
Head Start is a federal program designed to promote school readiness of preschool-aged children from low-income families. These programs collect children’s anthropometric data and communicate results to families to promote health and prevent obesity in enrolled children. Despite these requirements, there is a lack of guidance on how programs should communicate this information to families. Through a RWJF grant, Tovar convened an advisory group to draft recommendations. This talk will present some of these recommendations and discuss possible next steps on how to best engage with families, particularly those from historically marginalized communities.
Alison Tovar is an Associate Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences in the Brown University School of Public Health. Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, Dr. Tovar received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Northeastern University in 2001, a master’s in public health from Tufts University School of Medicine in 2005, and her Ph.D. from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in 2009. Dr. Tovar was a faculty in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at The University of Rhode Island from 2012-2021 and joined the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Brown School of Public Health in 2022. Dr. Tovar’s research focuses on understanding factors that shape eating behaviors early in life among historically marginalized populations, developing community-based interventions among these populations and evaluating policies that promote healthy eating.