Presenter: Meigan Niu, Finance & Information Systems, Global Public Health Scholars
I chose to complete my scholars practicum through an internship at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I worked in FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) on their Communications and Public Engagement Team. Throughout my internship, I was required to complete and send out Weekly Media Summaries at the end of each week that highlighted the top news stories regarding the FDA. In addition to Weekly Media Summaries, I also completed several Environmental Scans on major topics such as outbreaks, recalls, and more to help CFSAN better understand the general public’s reaction and thoughts about these public health issues that arise from the consumption of food and dietary supplements, as well as the use of cosmetics. These two tasks that I was assigned throughout my internship helped FDA employees better understand media response to food-related health issues which allowed them to effectively communicate to and update the general public on these issues.
Hi Jenna! The communications reports that I put out were actually used internally for the Communications and Public Engagement team to better understand how to formulate content to target certain food-related public health issues. However, in order to gain a better understanding of how certain populations/specific media sources responded to certain issues, I used Google Trends Analytics to see the search trends that specific keywords had during a given time period. For example, this could allow me to understand the popularity of concerns that different groups such as restaurant retailers had about the E. coli outbreak in leafy green vegetables. I would then place my information in visual graphs in the reports so the Communications team can quickly see whic…
Hi David! The biggest changes that were made to the nutrition labels was the inclusion of additional sugars, changes in the required nutrient list (e.g. Vitamins, Calcium, Iron, etc.), and updated daily intake values. These changes were created to help consumers make more informed food choices while emphasizing the link between chronic diseases such as obesity and heart diseases and one's personal diet choices.
Some things that the FDA puts a lot of focus on is how to effectively communicate food-related issues and how to prevent them through educational materials that are targeted towards different consumer groups. For example, an education outreach campaign was created for the new nutrition facts label which includes social media advertising, informative video commercials, and…
Hi Meigan,
This was a very interesting presentation and practicum project. It is very cool to see how you combine two passions that are seemingly different. I am a dietetics major, so I was very intrigued in your project and your work.
I had a question about the communication reports you put out, what was a creative tool you used in those reports or posts to better target certain populations and effectively reach a larger community?
Best,
Jenna
Hi Meigan,
I enjoyed watching your presentation. I am also interested in working in the food safety sector of public health.
What kind of changes/alterations did you guys do to improve the nutrition labels on food products? What kind of factors are necessary to maximize food/health literacy to general consumers?
Thanks.
David Song