Program in International and Community Nutrition

A formal Designated Emphasis in International and Community Nutrition is available to doctoral students in the following programs: the Graduate Group in Nutritional Biology (GGNB), the Graduate Group in Human Development (GGHD), the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics (DARE), the Department of Anthropology (DAn), and the Graduate Group in Epidemiology (GGE).  Students from other doctoral programs may also become eligible for the Designated Emphasis following consultation with the Director of the Program in International and Community Nutrition (PICN) and approval of its Executive Committee.  Successful completion of the requirements for the Designated Emphasis in International and Community Nutrition will be recognized on the student's diploma at the time of awarding the doctoral degree.  For example, students of the Graduate Group in Nutritional Biology will receive a "Ph.D. in Nutritional Biology with emphasis in International and Community Nutrition".

The term "Designated Emphasis", as applied at UC Davis, refers to an area of specialization or an important field of application relevant to two or more existing Ph.D. programs.  The structured curriculum that has been developed for the Designated Emphasis in International and Community Nutrition is comprised of a combination of previously existing and specially developed courses in nutrition and in related population sciences and social sciences, as well as a weekly seminar series.  For the purpose of the program, International and Community Nutrition is defined as all aspects of human nutrition of particular importance to populations of lower income countries and to disadvantaged sub-groups within more affluent countries.  Implicit in this definition is the recognition that these populations are especially vulnerable to undernutrition and overt deficiency diseases.  Moreover, nutritional status in these settings is often conditioned by a variety of environmental factors, including high rates of infection and, possibly, exposure to environmental contaminants. 

Because of the complex interplay of socio-cultural and biological factors that influence the nutritional status of disadvantaged populations, the Designated Emphasis actively encourages students to familiarize themselves with a broad range of disciplinary skills in addition to their core knowledge of nutrition science.  Moreover, in an effort to emphasize the importance of human functional indicators in the assessment of nutritional adequacy, the Designated Emphasis devotes special attention to the behavioral and developmental outcomes affected by nutrition.  Faculty members from the Departments of Nutrition, Pathology, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Environmental Studies, Agricultural and Resource Economics, and Anthropology currently participate in the Program.

All students admitted to the doctoral programs of the GGNB, the GGHD, the DARE, the DAn, and the GGE are automatically eligible for admission to the Designated Emphasis in International and Community Nutrition if they intend to complete their dissertation research in the field of International and Community Nutrition.  Generally, this means that they will choose a major professor who is a member of the Program in International and Community Nutrition.

Each student with a Designated Emphasis in International and Community Nutrition should master a minimum amount of material from each of three major fields of knowledge:

• nutrition science and its underlying physiology and biochemistry;
• epidemiology and its prerequisites in statistics;
• social and behavioral sciences, including economics, anthropology, and psychology.

The required courses have been selected to provide training in the application of nutrition and other biological and social sciences to the identification and solution of nutrition problems of high risk human populations.  These courses will contribute skills in the diagnosis and quantification of the major nutrition problems, a broad understanding of the multifactorial etiologies of these problems, and an introduction to the range of possible interventions available to resolve them.  In addition to the primary disciplinary knowledge and skills provided by the student's primary graduate program, the PICN offers training in the application of this expertise and an appreciation of the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration for understanding these problems and developing appropriate, feasible, and culturally sensitive solutions.

• Nutrition 111AV (Introduction to Nutrition and Metabolism) and Nutrition 111B (Recommendations and Standards for Human Nutrition)
  
  
  or
  
  
  Nutrition 201 (Vitamin and Cofactor Metabolism), Nutrition 202 (Advanced Nutritional Energetics), Nutrition 203 (Advanced Protein and Amino Acid Nutrition), Nutrition 204 (Mineral Metabolism) and Food Science and Technology 211 (Lipids: Chemistry and Nutrition).
  
  
• Nutrition 112  (Nutritional Assessment);
  
  
• Nutrition 219A and B (International Nutrition);
  
  
• Nutrition 258 (Field Research Methods in International Nutrition)
  
  
• Nutrition 291 (Seminar in International and Community Nutrition).
  
  

b.   Required courses in statistics and epidemiology

c.   Required courses in social and behavioral sciences

• Nutrition 120AN (Nutritional Anthropology) or Nutrition 120BN (Nutritional Geography) or any one of the approved courses on regional culture (see below)

The impact of the requirements for the Designated Emphasis on the normative time taken for completion of the doctoral degree will vary according to the respective doctoral program and the individual student's previous training.  As shown in Table 2, the additional requirements for the Designated Emphasis range from 14 to 28 credits, thereby generally increasing total normative time by less than two academic quarters.  Also, it may be possible for students to substitute courses required for the Designated Emphasis in International and Community Nutrition for elective credit already required by their doctoral program, thereby reducing the total impact on normative time.  Finally, students may waive certain of these requirements for the Designated Emphasis if they have previously completed similar graduate level courses.  Specific requests for course waivers should be presented to the Director of the PICN for approval by the Program's Executive Committee.

The qualifying examination will assess the student's level of knowledge in the area of the Designated Emphasis after all formal course requirements have been satisfied.  At least one faculty member from the PICN will participate in the qualifying examination.  As noted above, the student's major professor (chair of the dissertation committee) will generally be a faculty member of the PICN and at least one member of the dissertation committee must in all cases be a member of the PICN.  The dissertation topic must be relevant to International and Community Nutrition, as operationally defined above.

The Executive Committee of the PICN also serves as the Committee for the Designated Emphasis in International and Community Nutrition.  This committee is responsible for periodic review of the curriculum of the Designated Emphasis, assignment of faculty members to qualifying examination and dissertation committees, and coordination with the graduate committees of the participating doctoral programs.  Students should consult with the Director or Associate Director of the PICN for specific questions.

Students are expected to master basic applied statistics, including exploratory data analysis, hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, and multiple regression.  Many options are available to satisfy these requirements as noted in Table 1.  Descriptions of individual courses are available in the UC Davis catalogue.

Basic epidemiological concepts and approaches to epidemiologic research, with examples from veterinary and human medicine, including outbreak investigation, infection disease epidemiology, properties of tests, and an introduction to epidemiologic study design and surveillance.

 Epidemiology 206 – (cross listed as MPM 406A) - Epidemiologic Study Design (3 units)

Builds on concepts presented in course 205A.  Concepts of epidemiologic study design--clinical trials, observational cohort studies, case control studies--introduced in course 205A are covered in more depth, using a problem-based format.  Discussion of published epidemiologic studies.

 Food Science and Technology 211 - Lipids: Chemistry and Nutrition (3 units)

Chemistry of lipids as it pertains to research in food and nutrition.  Relations between lipid structure and their physical properties in tissues and foods.  Regulation of absorption, transport, and metabolism of lipids.  Implications of dietary fats and health.

 Nutrition 111AV - Introduction to Nutrition and Metabolism (3 units)

                  Online lecture.  Introduction to metabolism of protein, fat and carbohydrate; the biological role of vitamins and minerals; nutrient requirements during the life cycle; assessment of dietary intake and nutritional status.

 Nutrition 111B - Recommendations and Standards for Human Nutrition (2 units)

Critical analysis of the development of nutritional recommendations for humans.  Topics include history of modern recommendations, development of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) and other food guides; the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI); administrative structure of regulatory agencies pertinent to nutrition recommendations; introduction to scientific methods used to determine the recommendations; food labeling laws; nutrition recommendations in other countries and cultures.

 Nutrition 112 - Nutritional Assessment: Dietary, Anthropometric, Clinical and Biochemical Techniques (3 units)                 

Methods of human nutritional assessment, including dietary, anthropometric, biochemical, and hematological techniques and physical examination.  Principles of precision, accuracy, and interpretation of results for individuals and populations.

 Nutrition 120AN - Nutritional Anthropology (4 units)

Nutritional anthropology from historical and contemporary perspectives; the anthropological approach to food and diet; field work methods; case histories that explore food patterns and their nutritional implications.

 Nutrition 120BN - Nutritional Geography (4 units)

Nutritional geography from historical and contemporary perspectives; the geographical approach to food and diet; cultural and environmental factors that influence dietary practices; food-related landscapes and patterns.

 Nutrition 201 - Vitamin and Cofactor Metabolism (3 units)

Review of studies and relationships involving the metabolic functions of vitamins.  Comparative nutritional aspects and the metabolism and chemistry of vitamins and vitamin-like compounds.

 Nutrition 202 - Advanced Nutritional Energetics (2 units)

History of nutritional energetics.  Evaluation of energy transformations associated with food utilization.  Energy expenditures at cellular, tissue, and animal levels as affected by dietary and physiological state.  Current and future feeding systems.

 Nutrition 203 - Advanced Protein and Amino Acid Nutrition (3 units)

Nutritional significance of protein and amino acids, including studies of the influence of dietary protein on digestion, absorption, metabolism, resistance to disease, and food intake.  Study of dietary requirements and interrelationships among amino acids.

 Nutrition 204 - Mineral Metabolism (2 units)

Studies of metabolic functions and nutritional interrelationships involving minerals.

 Nutrition 219A - International Nutrition (3 units)

                  Epidemiology, etiology, and consequences of under-nutrition in developing countries.

 Nutrition 219 B - International Nutrition (3 units)

Nutrition policies and programs in developing countries.

 Nutrition 258 - Field Research Methods in International Nutrition (3 units)

Issues and problems related to implementation of nutrition field research in less-developed countries, including ethics; relationships with local governments, communities, and scientists; data collection techniques and quality assurance; field logistics; research budgets; and other administrative and personal issues.

 Nutrition 291 - Advanced Nutrition Seminar (1 unit)

Advanced topics in nutrition research.

 Statistics 100 - Applied Statistics for Biological Sciences (4 units)

                  Probability computation/modeling, estimation, hypothesis testing, contingency tables, ANOVA, regression; implementation of statistical methods using computer package.

 Statistics 102 - Introduction to Probability Modeling and Statistical Inference (4 units)

                  Introductory probablity and statistics at a rigorous yet precalculus level.  Rigorous precalculus introduction to probability and parametric/nonparametric statistical inference with computing; binomial, Poisson, geometric, normal, and sampling distributions; exploratory data analysis; regression analysis; ANOVA.

 Statistics 103 - Applied Statistics for Business and Economics (4 units)

                  Descriptive statistics; probability; random variables; expectation; binomial, normal; Poisson, other univeriate distributions; sampling distributions; joint distributions, central limit theorem; properties of estimators; linear combinations of random variables; testing and estimation; Minitab computing package.

 Statistics 106 - Applied Statistical Methods: Analysis of Variance (4 units)

                  One-way and two-way fixed effects analysis of variance models.  Randomized complete and incomplete block design, Latin squares.  Multiple comparisons procedures.  One-way random effects model.

 Statistics 108 - Applied Statistical Methods: Regression Analysis (4 units)

                  Simple linear regression, variable selection techniques, stepwise regression, analysis of covariance, influence measures, computing packages.

 Statistics 130A - Mathematical Statistics: Brief Course (4 units)

                  Basic probability, densities and distributions, mean, variance, covariance, Chebyshev's inequality, some special distributions, sampling distributions, central limit theorem and law of large numbers, point estimation, some methods of estimation, interval estimation, confidence intervals for certain quantities, computing sample sizes.

 Statistics 130B - Mathematical Statistics: Brief Course (4 units)

                  Transformed random variables, large sample properties of estimates.  Basic ideas of hypothesis testing, goodness-of-fit tests.  General linear model, least squares estimates, Gauss-Markov theorem.  Analysis of variance, F-test.  Regression and correlation, multiple regression.  Selected topics

 Statistics 131A - Introduction to Probability Theory (4 units)

                  Fundamental concepts of probability theory, discrete and continuous random variables, standard distributions, moments and moment generating functions, laws of large numbers and the central limit theorem.

 Statistics 131B - Introduction to Mathematical Statistics (4 units)

                  Sampling methods of estimation, sampling distributions, confidence intervals, testing hypotheses, linear regression, analysis of variance, elements of large sample theory, and nonparametric inference.

 Veterinary Preventive Medicine (MPM) 402 - Medical Statistics I (4 units)

                 Statistics in clinical, laboratory and population medicine: graphical and tabular presentation of data; probability; binomial; Poisson, normal, t-, F-, and Chi- square distributions; elementary nonparametric methods; simple linear regression and correlation; life tables.  Microcomputer applications of statistical procedures in population medicine.

 Veterinary Preventive Medicine (MPM) 403 - Medical Statistics II (4 units)

                 Continuation of course 402.  Analysis of variance in biomedical sciences; nonparametric methods; multiple regression; biomedical application of statistical methods.  Microcomputer applications to reinforce principles that are taught in lecture.

 Veterinary Preventive Medicine (MPM) 405 - Principles of Epidemiology (4 units)

Basic epidemiological concepts and approaches to epidemiologic research, with examples from veterinary and human medicine, including outbreak investigation, infection disease epidemiology, properties of tests, and an introduction to epidemiologic study design and surveillance.

 Veterinary Preventive Medicine (MPM) 406A - Epidemiologic Study Design (3 units)

Builds on concepts presented in course 405.  Concepts of epidemiologic study design--clinical trials, observational cohort studies, case control studies--introduced in course 405 are covered in more depth, using a problem-based format.  Discussion of published epidemiologic studies.