AWARDS | Innovation Grant
Food Quality Positive Deviants among low income urban African Americans: Identification and evaluation of their role in dietary knowledge diffusion (2007)
Mohan Kumar, Ph.D., MPH student, Department of International Health, JHSPH
Adverse food environments in low income urban African American communities are associated with increased rates of food insecurity and many chronic diseases. The positive deviance approach is being increasingly used to identify individuals or families in disadvantaged communities who demonstrate atypical practices or behaviors which afford them better health outcomes than others in the same community with the same resources. In the proposed study, food quality positive deviants (PDs) will be identified in a sample of low-income urban African Americans in Baltimore based on their dietary intake (scoring in the 95th percentile in healthiness of diet i.e. high fruit and vegetable, low processed food, caloric and fat intakes). The PDs and a control group of non-PDs (with average or lower score on the healthiness of diet scale) will be characterized with respect to their patterns of healthy food preparation and acquisition, dietary self-efficacy, intention and knowledge. In addition, the strengths of their social networks and diffusion of dietary knowledge to family and friends will be assessed in the two groups. The positive deviance approach strongly implies that there are atypical individuals and household level strategies to improve diet which can be diffused to other community members. These local atypical strategies can facilitate improvement of the food environment in urban low income AA communities and identify potential barriers and facilitators to diffusion of those strategies that could promote sustainable and socially-just healthy urban food systems. 
Results Research in progress
See Other Related Projects Land-Use, Walkability, the Food Environment in Baltimore City and the Association with Modifiable Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease(2007)
Sarah Stark Casagrande, MHS Student, Department of Epidemiology, JHSPH Development, Implementation and Evaluation of an Intervention for Korean Food Stores in Baltimore City to Improve Availability of Healthy Foods for Lower-Income African Americans (2005)
Hee-Jung Song, MS, Doctoral candidate, Department of International Health, JHSPH Increasing Food Security for the Inner-City Population in Baltimore: Formative Research for Food Store-Based Environmental Intervention (2002)
Joel Gittelsohn, PhD, Associate Professor, Division of Human Nutrition, Department of International Type and Cost of Foods Sold in Baltimore Neighborhoods: Impact on Dietary Intake and Cardiovascular Risk (2005)
Manuel Franco, MD, Doctoral candidate, Department of Epidemiology, JHSPH
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