Featured Faculty – Fall 2009
Dr. Sandra Evans
Dr. Alexandra (Sandra) Evans is Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences with the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living at the UT School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus. Her research interests include child and adolescent health promotion through interventions with parents and schools, maternal and child health and childhood obesity prevention. Dr. Evans chose a career in academia because she likes research but she also loves to teach and interact with students. She finds a nice balance between teaching and research, one that she finds very rewarding. Within public health, she chose the field of health behavior because she wants to help people acquire the ability to make healthy choices in their lives, either through behavioral or environmental/policy interventions.
Dr. Evans spends a lot of time working with the Sustainable Food Center of Austin. She enjoys working with SFC because of their mission to promote and increase underserved communities’ awareness of eating locally grown foods. She thinks the type of programs SFC implement will ultimately help reduce the carbon footprint in the world, and encourage people to eat healthier at the same time. Dr. Evans is also currently the chair of the website committee for the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA).
When she is not at work, she enjoys spending time with her family, camping, yoga, walking her dogs, and learning piano. She also enjoys getting out and about in Austin. She loves the Austin culture that promotes physical activity but also enjoys the great Mexican food and margaritas that can be found in Austin.
Dr. Evans has shared several of her favorite publications, as well as one that has been recently published. The citations are listed below, as well as a link to the most recently published article.
Most recently published:
Evans AE, Greenberg-Seth J, Smith S, Harris KK, Loyo JJ, Spaulding C, Gottlieb N. Parental feeding practices and concerns related to child underweight, picky eating, and using food to calm differ according to ethnicity/race, acculturation, and income. Maternal and Child Health Journal, Sept 2009, in press.
http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1007/s10995-009-0526-6
Favorite publications:
Dave J, Evans A, Saunders R, Watkins K, Pfeiffer K. Association of food insecurity, acculturation, and children’s fruit and vegetables intake among Hispanic children. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 2009;109:697-701.
Evans AE, Dave J, Tanner A, Duhe S, Condransky M, Wilson DK, Griffin S, Palmer M, Evans M. Changing the home environment: Effects of a nutrition and media literacy pilot intervention. Journal of Family and Community Health 2006; 29(1): 43-54.
Evans A, Dowda M, Saunders R, Buck J, Hastings L, Kennison K. The relationship between the home food environment and fruit and vegetable intake of children living in Residential Children’s Homes. Health Education Research 2008, doi:10.1093/her/cyn053.
