Access to Healthy Foods Across America

Research indicates that individuals who have access to healthy food tend to eat healthier. Food environments that do not have access to healthy food have been shown to be a leading cause of obesity in the United States. Major health consequences of obesity include cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, high cholesterol, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, and some cancers. The availability of healthy foods can be determined by median household income, with income levels being shown to affect access to healthy foods in local areas. However, no study has shown if this phenomenon is prevalent across the United States. Our cross-sectional study seeks to determine if the socioeconomic level of counties affects access to healthier food options across the United States. The study will include approximately 380 grocery stores nationwide with 190 grocery stores from high-income counties and 190 grocery stores from low-income counties. The counties are separated by the top and bottom 25th percentile of national household income levels and the middle-income household levels are excluded. Data collection will utilize the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in Stores (NEMS-S). Convenience sampling of the study will be dependent on researchers access and ability to travel their choice of counties from an eligible list of high and low income counties. Researchers will be recruited from an informational flyer posted in professional public health research groups on LinkedIn. The eligibility of researchers is determined by their responses to an eleven question Qualtrics recruitment survey. Qualified researchers recruited from LinkedIn will conduct the NEMS-S to measure and evaluate food availability, price, and quality in grocery stores. Proposed quantitative analyses of NEMS-S scores will utilize SPSS software by comparing high and low income counties using t-tests. This nation-wide analysis should be completed by winter of 2014

A Low-Cost Egg Incubator to Provide Zambian Churches with Income and Food Security

Partnering with Brethren in Christ (BIC) Church in Zambia, the Egg Incubator Team is seeking to help provide a source of income for the growing churches in Choma, Zambia. They will accomplish this by designing and building a high-quality, low-cost egg incubator fabricated from local parts and cheap internationally available parts for The Nahumba Mission, in Choma, Zambia. The team’s design will provide the means for the Mission to hatch and sell chickens to provide both food security and a sustainable supplemental income. With the specifications to maintain temperature, humidity and constant ventilation, the team selected heating and humidity concepts for their incubator series. The team completed both mechanical and electrical designs for the setter and hatcher. In preparation for testing the incubator design with fertilized eggs, the team has also produced an incubation and hatching plan and achieved IACUC approval. Currently, the team is in the prototyping phase, while simultaneously monitoring the temperature and humidity in an existing incubator setter design. Once the team finishes their hatcher prototype and verifies that the temperature and humidity specifications are met, they will be ready to test designs using fertilized chicken eggs.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2021/1020/thumbnail.jp

Force Characterization and Manufacturing of a Dynamic Unilateral Clubfoot Brace

Clubfoot is a musculoskeletal birth defect that is characterized by an inward twisting of an infant’s feet. The current method for correction involves several casts and a bilateral boots-and-bar maintenance brace. This method of maintenance requires 5 years of bracing and has issues with compliance, comfort, and social stigma. CURE International in Kijabe, Kenya is currently using the boots-and-bar brace but is interested in implementing a design that reduces these concerns. Mr. Jerald Cunningham, CPO, designed and is utilizing a unilateral clubfoot maintenance brace, the Cunningham Brace, which he expects will reduce treatment time to 2-3 years, lessen the social stigma, and increase the child’s mobility. However, there is not enough published research on its biomechanics and patient success rates to confirm his findings. The Collaboratory Cunningham Clubfoot Brace project seeks to validate the effectiveness of this design and increase accessibility through force testing and standardized manufacturing. We are working on measuring the biomechanical forces created and applied by the brace with a series of force sensors that are attached to the child’s brace. In addition, a new wrapping process for manufacturing the Cunningham Brace is being developed to increase the productivity and reproducibility of brace manufacturing in Kenya. Along with a clinical study that was started in Kenya, this testing and manufacturing will allow for further understanding of the effectiveness of the Cunningham Brace and provide more research for the medical community for it to potentially be accepted as an alternative clubfoot maintenance brace.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2020/1014/thumbnail.jp

High Quality, Low Cost Egg Incubator for BIC Church in Choma, Zambia

The Egg Incubator team is partnering with the Brethren in Christ Church located in Choma, Zambia to design a high-quality, low-cost chicken egg incubator to supply the pastors and church members with a means of food and income. The design will need to take into account the accessibility and cost of the tools and materials. The current prototype features separate heating and humidity systems, a control system to maintain a set temperature and humidity, and tilting egg racks. The heating system consists of two stovetop coils to produce heat and a fan to transfer it to the air. The humidifier utilizes an atomizer in a pan of water to create a mist that mixes with the hot air to create humidity. The control system uses a proportional integral derivative controller (PID) to keep the temperature at 37 ± 1 °C and the humidity at 60–70%. The egg racks are tilted by a motor that runs every 6 hours to prevent the embryos from sticking to the shell. With a fully functioning prototype, the team has begun to incubate 60 real fertilized eggs. During the 21-day incubation process, a final prototype iteration is being designed and will be built on-site in Zambia in May 2022. Funding for this work provided by The Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2022/1004/thumbnail.jp