Keala Swafford

56-370 Kekauoha St. Kahuku HI, 96731 Phone: 808-285-3727

FSHN 492
University of Hawai’i at Manoa

Marie Kainoa Fialkowski Revilla, PhD, MS, RD​N, LD

1955 East West Road, Ag Sciences 314J Honolulu, HI 96822
mariekf@hawaii.edu​, Phone: 808-956-8337
 My long term goal is to incorporate cultural foods into disease prevention and

nutrition interventions in my dietetic practice. I believe the first step in achieving this goal

is to work alongside the community to identify the supports and barriers of consuming

health promoting foods. I hope to also be able to address the obstacles faced by

indigenous people in gaining access to culturally relevant and healthy food. Through the

dietetic internship, I aim to create modified and therapeutic diets that incorporate

traditional foods with cultural significance as an application of nutrition for disease

prevention and management.

With this field experience, I look forward to exploring the first food feeding

practices of Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Filipino infants through

community-based research methods. I recognize the changes needed to support

individual health and the health of our local economies. The Hawaiian and Pacific

Islands were once self-sustaining and not dependent on imported foods. This contrasts

with today society where a majority of our food is imported. ​When improving health, it is

necessary to incorporate traditional foods into daily practice because indigenous foods,

like traditional Native Hawaiian foods, reflect the qualities we want: high fiber, low

energy, and plenty of vitamins and minerals. ​This is done by developing our local food

system. By introducing environmental stewardship, our community will be a part of the

local food system and be influenced to make healthier choices. My goal is to incorporate

the foods our ancestors ate, to embrace our culture, be sustainable, and have a diet

that maintains health.

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 I am completing my field work at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa in the

department of Human Nutrition Food and Animal Science (HNFAS). The philosophy of

this department is to “enhance nutrition and health by educating people and developing

and disseminating science-based information to promote ​sustainable food production

and animal systems appropriate for the Pacific Region”. ​The goal of this field experience

is to identify the influences and explore first food feeding practices. The population

being served are the Native Hawaiian, Filipino, and Pacific Islander community. This

project focuses on the dietary habits of infants that are 3-12 months old. The University

of Hawai’i provides services related to education. This research project aims to provide

an enhanced understanding of what influences decision making on first foods of Native

Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Filipino infants on O’ahu. The source of financial

assistance for my participation is through the employment of the Native Hawaiian

Student Services. This research project is funded by grant number #2U54MD007601-31

from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), a

component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and also by the HMSA Foundation,

CF-02180. The physical facility is located at the Agricultural Science building on the

University of Hawai’i campus.

Dr. Marie Kainoa Fialkowski Revilla is an assistant professor for the Department

of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Science at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.

She is a Registered Dietician and Licensed Dietitian Nutritionist. Her current research

interests include: nutrition and health in Indigenous populations, nutritional assessment,

and nutrition education for underserved populations.

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 The professional staff positions for this project include the two Principal

Investigators (PI) a graduate research assistant, and undergraduate research assistant.

As a undergraduate research assistant, the requirements for this position included

submitting an application with my transcript and research proposal and having a faculty

member to mentor me throughout the research process. Specific entry level skills and

qualification for the position were not specified. This undergraduate research assistant

position is a part of the Native Hawaiian Student Services (NHSS) ‘Oiwi Undergraduate

Research Fellowship that aims to increase Native Hawaiian student success by

strengthening faculty-student engagement. Opportunities for advancement include

continuing to build upon the research project until graduation. The undergraduate and

graduate research assistant duties include conducting and completing various portions

of the project in order to present at the NHSS Lahui Hawai’i Research Center

Conference. The principle investigator positions are required to fulfill the activities

specified by the grants that fund the project.

The learning objectives include gaining skills in; conducting an interview,

transcribing interviews, coding interviews, attending a recruitment event and weekly

meetings, creating a poster presentation, and presenting my findings at a student

research conference. In order to accomplish these learning objectives, I needed to learn

about the process of conducting an interview. This required me to attend interviews

conducted by the graduate research assistant to observe the process. After attending a

few interview sessions, I will be able to conduct an interview with a participant on my

own. In order to gain skills in transcribing, I attended a workshop to learn about and be

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able to efficiently transcribe interviews. By attending NVIVO workshops, I will be able to

learn about how to utilize the software being used for the project and how to code

interviews for reoccuring themes. In attending a recruitment event and weekly meeting, I

was able to help recruit more participants to meet our goal of 70 participants and further

develop my skills of communication with the community and the research team. In order

to learn about how to create a research poster, I attended a workshop with the Native

Hawaiian Student Services to get a better understand of the poster dimensions and

information to display. The last objective was to present my at a student research

conference to improve my public speaking skills and share my findings with other

attendees.

In achieving my goals and objectives for this project, I am 100 percent done. I

was able to successfully complete the goals and objectives set for this project by the

ultimate deadline of March 30th. For the future outcomes and impacts created in the

Logic Model, the results are still in progress. This experience has helped me to achieve

my learning objectives by working alongside my mentor and co worker to identify and

utilize available resources to accomplish them. Some of the most rewarding

experiences included being able to work with different departments at UH and being

able to work with the community.

Some of the frustrations that I encountered included having to transcribe

interviews. I began my transcription journey by listening to the interviews and typing out

the conversation. It took hours to completely transcribe a few minutes of the

conversation. It was frustrating to see that I would be working about four hours a day

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and only be able to get five minutes worth of conversation. In facing this problem, I

attended workshops about how to transcribe quicker. In this workshop, I learned about

how to utilize the “closed caption” resource on Youtube. This helped increase my

productivity and have a portion of the work completed-- without having to start on a

blank canvas.

The goals that I had set were both challenging and realistic. I felt that I was able

to challenge myself to gain new skills and work on my own confidence. My goals were

realistic because everything that I set forth to do needed to be completed to meet the

project deadline. I was able to challenge myself to gain new skills by attending

workshops in other departments on and off campus. I feel that it has always been a

challenge for me to speak in a large crowd or actively converse with other people and

this project challenged me to do a presentation and recruit participants at community

events.

Through this project, some unanticipated learning included learning to recruit

participants and how to encourage them to continue and complete the study. Getting

the community excited and interested in being a part of a research study can be

challenging. It was interesting to see that some people showed interest at first and lost

interest while doing the study. In working to have our participants complete the study,

we needed, as a team, to do make the process very simple and easy. We utilized online

forms, scheduled meetings, met participants at their home or random location, and

texted reminders constantly. I did not anticipate having to constantly pester participants

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to ensure that they followed the directions and completed the study. In order to do so, I

often needed to fill out forms for them or needed to drive long distances to further

explain the study.

In doing this project, I learned that my skills in organizing helped keep our

information and documents easy to find and access. In working with numerous

participants, it was important for me to keep track of what forms were completed, what

stage of the study each person was at, and when each person would be completed. I

also needed to ensure that the interviews were labeled correctly and transcriptions did

not have any identifiable information in it. Through this project, I learned that I cannot

constantly work at my desk and stare at the computer screen. I felt that after an hour, I

needed to take a break to refocus my brain and give me motivation. From this

experience, I learned that I am more efficient at completing my work if there are minimal

distractions. For example, being around less people made me more motivated to work,

but when every cubicle was filled, I felt less motivated to work.

One of my strength from this project included having good time management. By

managing my time efficiently, I was able to complete my tasks by the deadlines I was

given. Another strength included collaborating well with others. I needed to work

alongside my co-worker to ensure to schedule our attendance for workshops and

carpooling to to community events.

My weaknesses included speaking with those in the community to get them

interested in the study and presenting my work. I get nervous when speaking with

people I don’t know. At community events I would need to get the attention of families

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passing our table and being rejected made me feel like I was not doing a good job in

getting that person to participate. I also noticed when presenting I tend to talk super fast

and get my information mixed up.

Opportunities for growth include participating in more community events and

present my work. By practicing and memorising a few lines about my project, I think I

could gain more confidence in speaking about how amazing this project is.

In doing this project, I learned about the importance and expectations of a

mentor. My mentor had high expectations for me because I had work with her in the

past; however, we have built trust and worked with each other to build rapport. She

made the expectations and objectives I needed to complete very clear and we had

weekly meeting to ensure that I was staying on track. For me, I expected that my

mentor would guide me throughout the research process and provide me with

constructive feedback when submitting my work. I feel that having a positive relationship

with your mentor provides an atmosphere that allows for good work. I feel that I can

giveback as a professional by becoming an mentor. If I am working in a clinic or have

my own practice, I would welcome students to shadow or intern. For me, expectation of

a mentor or supervisor would be to have clear objectives and expectations and

checkway points to ensure that the student is getting the work done.

Some of the classes that prepared me for this field experience included FSHN

469 Nutrition Counseling, FSHN 499 Directed Reading and Research, and FSHN 389

Nutrition Assessment. I was able to integrate my learnings from FSHN 469 into this

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project. In FSHN 469 we learned about how to converse with participants. In doing this

research project, I needed to conduct interviews with participants to get a better

understanding of the reasons behind how they learned to feed their infant, what they

feed their infants, and the reasons why. FSHN 499 has helped me throughout this

project because, taking it in Fall 2017, I learned about the beginning process of

conducting a research project. Taking that class prepared me for what to expect

throughout the months and also provided me with designated times to dedicate to my

work. FSHN 389 has also prepared me for this project because I utilized what I learned

about diet assessment to analyze the food groups given to the children during the

study. As we continue to analyze the data we collected, the material I learned in this

class will allow me to be able to look at the image provided and determine the child’s

diet diversity.

Work experience is very valuable for a student. Being able to have opportunities

to explore various career paths for ones major can help determine ones passion. For

me, I did not know what exactly I wanted to do or focus on. In being a part of this

project, I was exposed to research and gained a new passion to help serve my

community. For this project, we focused on the Native Hawaiian, Filipino, and Pacific

Islander population to look at infant diets. In being able to work with the community, I

learned what influences a parent’s feeding habits and saw various themes emerge. It

was interesting to see how many of the parents had similar ideas of how to a healthy

infant should look, eat, and act even though they all had different upbringings. This type

of work experience can help a student identify their passions because doing this project

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got me interested in learning about the dietary health of indigenous populations,

specifically infants. I am hoping to be able to move forward in my educational career

and continue to do research in these topics as I pursue my masters degree.

For students in the dietetics department, I feel that the exposure to a work

experience can help one to figure out what sector of nutrition they would like to focus

on, whether it be clinical, community, or food service. Doing research can help provide

exposure to clinical nutrition or community nutrition. Getting work experience can also

help determine continuing to pursue that sector of focus. Without the opportunity to get

work experience, one might not be able to see what they really enjoy doing. For

example, if a student wants to work in a hospital, but never has any experience, they

may not know if they enjoy that type of work pace or environment.

Work experience also allows students to network. It is important to get to know

your professors, but it is also important to get to know those in the community. Being

able to work with professionals in the community will allow greater insight into the

profession along with the work that is being done to help the community.

In conclusion, this project has helped me to gain insight into the research aspect

of nutrition. It provided me with the opportunity to work in the community and work with

the indigenous and infant populations. Doing this project, I was able to complete the

aims and objectives I set forth and was able to ultimately present my findings at the

Lahui Hawai’i Research Center Student Conference.

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 In moving forward, I will be able to utilize my experience with this project to guide

me into my next steps in my career. I will be pursuing a masters degree in the Fall

semester. I hope to be able to use my experience to guide me as a purse a research

project. I hope to be able to focus my project and work with the indigenous community

and also children.

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