The Next Normal: Food and Health

Yeeli Mui, PhD, MPH, is a Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health in the Department of International Health. Her participatory action research focuses on strengthening policy to create equitable, sustainable, and healthy communities. Dr. Mui applies an urban planning lens to obesity prevention and healthy eating by critically examining relationships between food and other systems of the built environment, such as land use, transportation, and housing. Part of a multi-country effort, she is leading an interdisciplinary team to mitigate food inequities of small-scale farmers experiencing urbanization and climate change pressures in Kerala, India. Dr. Mui is also evaluating the role of collective efficacy and collaborative governance models to drive policy and food systems change at the local level in different U.S. cities.

Tolullah Oni is a Public Health Physician Scientist and urban epidemiologist, and leads the Global Diet and Physical Activity group at the Unit.

She completed her medical training at University College London, postgraduate medical training in the UK and Australia, a Masters in Public Health (Epidemiology) at the University of Cape Town, and her research doctorate in Clinical Epidemiology at Imperial College London. She spent 11 years conducting research in South Africa, where she also completed her public health medical specialty training. She established and leads (as an Honorary Associate Professor) a Research Initiative for Cities Health and Equity (RICHE) at the University of Cape Town, conducting transdisciplinary urban health research focused on generating evidence to support development and implementation of healthy public policies in rapidly growing cities, with a focus on Africa. Research activities include Systems for Health projects: investigating how urban systems (e.g. housing, food) can be harnessed for health; and Health Systems projects: integrated heath systems responses to changing patterns of disease and multimorbidity in the context of urbanisation.

She continues this planetary health focus within the unit, focusing on meso- and macro-level determinants of diet and physical activity in the contexts of urbanisation and climate change worldwide.

She has published over 80 manuscripts in high-impact journals, and has given presentations at international academic (urban health, HIV, TB) and non-academic meetings including the United Nations High Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development, New York; and the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, Davos 2018.

Tolullah serves on several advisory boards including Future Earth and is an editorial board member of Lancet Planetary Health, Cities and Health, the Journal of Urban Health and PLOS Global Public Health. Profiled in the Lancet journal in 2016, she is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge  a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Usha Ramakrishnan, PhD, is the Chair & Distinguished Richard N. Hubert Professor of the Hubert Department of Global Health in The Rollins School of Public Health, and Graduate Faculty member of the Doctoral Programs in a) Nutrition and Health Sciences (NHS) and b) Global Health and Development, Laney Graduate School, at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. She is a leading expert in global maternal and child nutrition and health and has authored over 170 research articles in peer-reviewed professional journals, 19 book chapters, and, edited 4 Books, Monographs and Proceedings. Dr. Ramakrishnan has designed and led large randomized controlled trials (RCT) that test nutrient interventions during pregnancy and early childhood, and also participated in prospective longitudinal studies that examine pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight, preterm birth and subsequent child growth and development. She has examined the effects of multiple micronutrient (MM) malnutrition during pregnancy, lactation, and early childhood, and more recently completed a large RCT of the effects of weekly pre-conception multiple micronutrient (MM) supplements on maternal and child health outcome in Vietnam (PRECONCEPT). Her current research projects also include examining the effects of omega-3 fatty acids, especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), during pregnancy on child health, growth and development. She was the PI of a large NIH-funded research project in collaboration with the National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Mexico, that examined the effects of prenatal DHA supplements on infant development (POSGRAD), and has followed up this cohort through 11 y of age. She has also led and participated in several collaborations with non-governmental organizations and research institutions based in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Europe, and also serves on several expert review panels and has provided technical support for various projects in her field of expertise over the years.

Dr. May Wang joined the faculty as associate professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences in 2008. She received an undergraduate degree from the National University of Singapore, a master’s degree in nutritional science from the University of Texas at Austin, and master’s and doctorate degrees in public health from the University of California at Berkeley. After obtaining her doctorate degree, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine where she was trained in the emerging field of pediatric bone health research. Since then, she has conducted research related to child obesity and bone health with a focus on addressing health disparities. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association and Excellence in Education Award from the California Dietetic Association.

Julia Belluz is Vox’s senior health correspondent, focused on medicine, science, and public health. She’s covered topics as varied as the anti-vaccine movement, America’s staggering maternal mortality problem, how dark chocolate became a health food, and what makes America’s sickest county so unhealthy. She has also debunked numerous medical misinformation peddlers such as Dr. Oz, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Alex Jones.

In 2015, Julia launched Vox’s Show Me the Evidence series, which goes beyond the frenzy of daily headlines to take a deeper look at the state of the science behind pressing health questions, from treatments for chronic back pain to why exercise is not helpful when it comes to weight loss.

Before joining Vox, Julia was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT and her writing appeared in a range of international publications, including the BMJ, the Chicago Tribune, the Economist and Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine, the Globe and Mail, the LA Times, Maclean’s, the National Post, Slate, and the Times of London. She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics. She is the recipient of numerous journalism awards, including the 2016 Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, the 2017 American Society of Nutrition Journalism Award, and several Canadian National Magazine Awards. Outside of reporting, she speaks regularly at universities and conferences the world over, and has been a fellow at McMaster University. Follow her on Twitter @juliaoftoronto.