Dietary Assessment & Focus Groups
2003
My Food Choices.com - A Web-based Dietary Assessment Tool
Kimberly M. Gibson, MEd, MHS, RD, LD; Marilyn H. Hughes, PhD, RD, LD; Rebecca M. Mullis, PhD, RD, LD
University of Georgia, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Department of Foods and Nutrition 2003 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nutrition Education in Philadelphia; Technology Demonstration Session with Poster
Dietary Assessment in Minority Adolescents
Leslie M. Rodriquez, RD, LD
The project was completed in Hall County, Georgia in June 2004.
Focus Group Interviews:
Or, "If you build it, will they come?"
In the movie, Field of Dreams, an omnipotent voice tells Kevin Costner, "If you build it they will come". Nutrition educators fall into the trap of believing that if they develop nutrition education materials or programs, their messages will be heard, accepted, and acted upon. That only works in the movies. Before your audience will listen to you, you must listen to your audience, and that is what focus groups are all about. In fact, focus group research is fundamentally important to creating successful health promotion programs.
The staff of the UGA Community Nutrition Intervention Lab develops nutrition and physical activity intervention programs and educational materials for diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status communities. Each project begins with an assessment of the community's culture and needs. In addition to collecting quantitative data, such as morbidity, mortality, and demographics data, we gather qualitative data through focus group interviews with community members.
Briefly, focus group interviews are facilitated discussions involving 7-10 community participants led by a trained moderator. A skillful moderator makes the group feel comfortable and creates a relaxed, permissive atmosphere that encourages open dialogue. Participants feel empowered to voice their quality of life concerns and share ideas about ways that nutrition and physical activity programs can respond to those concerns. At times, focus group interviews are used in combination with qualified survey tools in order to determine the range and extent of various opinions. After enough focus groups are held within a community to ascertain a consensus of opinions, data from all the focus groups are analyzed and used to design the intervention program and educational materials. Following the developmental stage, additional focus groups are conducted to pre-test the program concepts and materials. Based on feedback from the evaluation focus groups, the program and materials are modified accordingly to assure that they are culturally appropriate and meet the needs of the community. Which is to say, if you have listened to your audience and built your program to meet their needs, they will be more likely to come, hear, and act on your message. For more detailed information about planning, conducting, and evaluating focus group research, contact a member of the UGA Community Nutrition Intervention Lab staff or view the related website listed below:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rkrueger/focus.html
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