How do scientists research food as medicine or healthy trends in a community?

How do scientists research food as medicine and genetic and metabolic nutrition as a science, and where do they get their funds? The first place to find out more about who's investigating and experimenting or doing studies in nutrition research is to look at current studies. Next you may want to find out who's getting funding, who's writing grant proposals to get funding, and where to research collaborators and where the support is coming from -- universities or corporations that manufacture drugs or other therapeutic treatments?

You may also want to take a look at resources on ethnics, engaging the community, and public access to documents and research publications at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). For example, who's doing studies, who's regulating studies, and where are the best clinical research sites online pertaining to nutrition or food as medicine? Maybe you want to know who's doing community studies in your area and how you may be able to participate, if you wish.

You may want to check out your own area's community engagement research program or the one at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. For example, check out the Community Engagement Research Program (CERP) in Atlanta, according to its website. The research tool builds on two existing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded Prevention Research Centers (PRCs) at MSM and Emory, both of which have a strong track record in developing community-based research initiatives that are responsive to the needs and priorities of the communities served by each center.

The two PRCs provide outstanding models of academic-community partnerships through which academic scientists, in collaboration with community members, are able to conduct community-engaged research, build community capacity, and train students and junior investigators in community-engaged research approaches. CERP unites the two schools’ other academic-community research partnerships, develops new bi-directional collaborations, and interfaces with other ACTSI components.

CERP provides the framework and training to disseminate and promote effective interventions and recruit participants for Clinical Research Network-based clinical studies as well as community intervention trials. Equally important, the program increases community capacity to participate in research (including the identification of research questions and topics for discovery) and works toward the improvement of its own health.

CERP transforms research from a scientist-subject interaction that generates publishable data to a more equitable partnership - one in which the process of research, as well as the outcomes, benefit both the researchers and the community. This will lead to a reduction in health disparities.

For the general public, you may want to start with the most recent news in the field of nutrition and health. For example, see the news stories links listed below as they show news about what research communities are doing on health trends. For example, see, eRoundup for 01/04/13 (January 3, 2013). Looking for public access webinars? See, Public Access Policy Webinar-January 15 (January 3, 2013).