Week #1 Journal

Monday (5/10/21): 10:00am-3:30pm – 5.5 hours

Tuesday (5/11/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Wednesday (5/12/21): 9:00- 12:30 & 1:00pm-5:00pm – 7.5 hours
Thursday (5/13/21): 9:00am-12:30pm & 1:00pm-5:00pm – 7.5 hours
Friday (5/14/21): 9:00am-12:30pm & 1:00pm-5:00pm – 7.5 hours

Weekly Hours: 36
Total Hours to Date: 36

On Monday, the first day of my internship, Dr. Francis and I met to discuss what I would

be doing for the summer. We created a weekly schedule for the first six weeks and talked about

all the different things he wanted us to do such as having training sessions for the handheld GPS

devices, collecting data out in the community, and creating maps of the data we will collect. On

Monday we also met with Dr. Oetter, who will be helping us with our trainings and creating

maps. I also started brainstorming topics/ideas to include in a systematic review about our

research topic of physical food environments.

On Tuesday Dr. Francis tasked me with finding articles to be used in the systematic

review I have to write in order to review the literature related to physical food environments in

rural communities. We talked about the set up for systematic reviews, what goes into them, and

how they are important in research. We talked about the PICO framework and came up with key

search words we wanted to use while looking for articles. Searching for articles proved to be

very difficult as none of the articles seemed to relate to the research we wanted to cover,

however, we did find 10,000+ different articles to sift through after our initial search. On

Tuesday I was also able to attend a community meeting at Hardwick Baptist Church which I

really enjoyed because it gave me an insight into the theories and program planning processes we

talk about in most of our public health classes. Also please note, on Tuesday I did not take a

lunch break and continued to work while I was having lunch.

 On Wednesday I continued to work on my systematic review and began to go through all

the articles I found on Tuesday. I searched through them by tags, titles, and a quick read of the

abstract. I was able to pull about 60 articles I thought were relevant and then began outlining the

different topics I wanted to talk about. I began writing the ‘Background’ section of the

systematic review, but while doing this I began to feel very overwhelmed because I wasn’t sure I

was doing it right or truly understood what exactly is supposed to be included. After talking to

Dr. Francis, he told me to look for common themes within the articles and group them together

so I would know what prominent topics should be included. This helped guide me a little more in

what I was doing.

On Thursday I went through the 60 articles I pulled out and began to search for common

themes and subthemes within them. This helped me to organize my thoughts and allowed me to

look for other articles that would fit within those themes. I began writing some of the ‘Results’

sections about the themes I had found, but I still felt like I didn’t have enough research, because

like I stated earlier, there isn’t much research available in this area of study. At this point I was

feeling very overwhelmed about the systematic review, so I went back to searching for articles I

thought would relate to physical food environments in rural communities and began grouping the

new articles.

On Friday, I continued working on my systematic review and looking for articles to

include. I was able to write more about the reoccurring themes within the articles and started

working on my ‘Methods’ sections. One thing I noted during this process is that writing a

systematic review is something I haven’t had to do before, so I was still feeling very unsure if

what I was doing was right. It seemed to me like I was doing things out of order, but that was the

only way I was making progress with the review. I didn’t get as much done as I would have
liked, but I was able to make some headway. A major thing I learned this week while working on

my systematic review is that little studies are done in rural communities about health and access

to nutritious foods. This proved to be one of the most difficult things for me in my first week

because I struggled to find research articles I thought would be good to include in the review.

Despite feeling unsure about my tasks this first week, I am looking forward to next week because

I know Dr. Francis and I have some fun and informative events to attend!

Week #2 Journal

Monday (5/17/21): 9:00am-12:30pm & 1:00pm-5:00pm – 7.5 hours

Tuesday (5/18/21): 9:00am-1:00pm & 2:00pm-5:00pm – 7 hours
Wednesday (5/19/21): 8:00am-12:30pm & 1:30pm-5:30pm – 8.5 hours
Thursday (5/20/21): 9:00am- 12:00pm & 12:30pm-7:00pm – 9.5 hours
Friday (5/21/21): 9:00am- 12:30pm & 1:00pm-5:00pm – 7.5 hours

Weekly Hours: 40
Total Hours to Date: 76

On Monday I continued to work on my systematic review and searched for more research

articles I could include. I worked on writing about some of the themes I had identified and then

met with Dr. Francis to talk about making a summary chart for all my articles. In the chart I

broke down each article and pulled out the author, year published, how it fit into my PICO

framework, main findings, themes/subthemes, and limitations/gaps in the research. It was really

helpful to make the chart because I could easily see which of the articles talked about what

themes or how they fit into my review.

On Tuesday I worked on the summary chart for my systematic review and then Dr.

Francis, his Grad Assistant, Cat, and myself went to the Harrisburg Collaborative meeting. At the

meeting I was able to meet former County Commissioner Tommy French, Baldwin County’s
SNAP-Ed Educator, Deja Lester, The Fire Marshal, Captain Sheri Kneip, and other important

community members. At the meeting a lot of upcoming events in the community like SNAP-Ed

meetings, trainings sessions with the fire marshal, and the food distribution at the community

center were discussed. After the meeting I continued to work on my systematic review and then

set up the Montana 680t GPS devices we’re going to use when we go to collect data.

Wednesday was a busy day for me! I was able to attend the Harrisburg food distribution

that takes places at the community center the 3rd Wednesday of every month. We took people’s

blood pressure, handed out health promotion materials, and helped with the set up/take down. I

really enjoyed helping at the food distribution because I was able to meet community members

and participate in a food distribution, which I have never done before. It was really heartwarming

to see so many people come together to distribute food to individuals who need it, so I really

enjoyed that experience. After the distribution, Dr. Francis and I had a zoom meeting with Dr.

Oetter and Danielle Sharpe, a Geospatial Epidemiologist for the CDC. We talked about the

research Dr. Francis, and I will be doing, and they offered ideas on what we could measure or

how the study could be implemented. Also, Danielle is friends with one of the professors who

teaches in the program I will be a student in at Johns Hopkins so she said she could get me in

contact with him as a potential advisor, so that was very cool and extremely nice of her. After

our meeting with them, I went to meet with Dr. Oetter in his office and we took all the data off of

the Montana GPSs from the last study Dr. Francis did on blight. Since Dr. Francis’s previous

intern has graduated and didn’t know how to use GIS to make a map, I have been tasked with

making a map of her data. Dr. Oetter showed me how to remove the data from the device and

export it to a computer so I could manipulate it in ArcPro (a GIS software). After that he showed

me how to clean up the data and isolate the points we wanted to include. He also showed me how
to join the data they collect in the field from an excel sheet to the digital data points. This was a

great refresher for me as I learned how to do it in my Intro to GIS course, but that was over a

year ago. Dr. Oetter and I also talked about different software programs and computers that

would be useful for me to have while in my graduate program. It was good to talk to him about

those things as he is very knowledgeable on the updated technologies that would serve me well

as a GIS student.

Thursday was a systematic review workday for me, and I worked on fixing the sections I

already had and looked for more research articles. After reading through some of the articles I

had found, I decided to add a few more sections on health outcomes and increased disease risk,

so I looked for articles that included those topics. While doing my research I found that many

studies do not exist on health outcomes in rural communities, just like there aren’t many about

food environments, so I found it difficult to find viable research articles. I also added the new

articles I used to my summary chart. At the end of the day Dr. Francis, Cat, and I had a Cooper’s

Community meeting which was interesting to experience because all the community members

were very passionate about the issues they wanted to discuss, and the conversation was heated at

points. It was also neat to hear all the different points they had to address and what issues they

thought were the most prominent in their community, but it did make the meeting last an hour

longer than was scheduled.

On Friday I worked from home, so I worked on my systematic review and looked at the

data from the GPSs on thundercloud. I also started planning how I would map all the food

establishments in Baldwin County. There are over 200 square miles in Baldwin County so it’s

going to be a long process mapping all the points. I decided to start by using google maps to see

where food establishes are outside of the main locations on North Columbia. We have a
restaurant list from 2016, but it only includes the North Columbia restaurants, so it will need to

be updated and have more points added. I also recruited some friends to help us collect data

when we have our collection days, and Dr. Francis said he would look into getting us a GC car

so we wouldn’t have to use our own vehicles. Overall, this was a good week, but I am definitely

feeling overwhelmed and a little underprepared for the whole data collection and research

process, but I’m confident that it will go well!

Week #3 Journal

Monday (5/24/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours

Tuesday (5/25/21): 9:00am-5:30pm – 8.5 hours
Wednesday (5/26/21): 11:00am-5:00pm – 6 hours
Thursday (5/27/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Friday (5/28/21): 9:00am- 12:30pm & 1:00-5:00pm – 7. 5 hours

Weekly Hours: 38
Total Hours to Date: 114

On Monday I finished up a short, very rough draft of my systematic review and sent it to

Dr. Francis so he could review it. I then met with him in his office to talk about the research

protocol for our data collection for the physical food environments in Baldwin County. We

discovered the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) so we decided to

incorporate that into our collection process so we would know what type of establishments we

will be tracking. We choose 6 classifications that we thought would best characterize the food

environments in Baldwin to include. I started to write the Research Methodology based on the

classifications and other steps we will take in order to collect our data. I based my research

methodology on the one used for the blight data, so it was easy to write, and I understood the

different aspects that needed to be included. I took a working lunch on Monday so I would have

a full 8 hours since I knew I wouldn’t have a full day on Wednesday.

 On Tuesday I finished the research methodology and created the Qualtrics survey that

will be filled out with every data point (food establishment) collected. The survey includes items

like the waypoint code from the GPS device, NAICS code, and other basics like the

establishment name and address. While I was making the survey, I realized that some of the

original NAICS classification codes we chose were not inclusive of some of the food

establishments we know exist in Baldwin County. For example, none of the original codes we

selected included ice cream parlors or coffee shops, so we had to choose new codes that would

include these specialty stores. After revising the original codes, we ended with 8 classification

codes and some subclassifications so we would know if there were duplicates. We also discussed

how we would go about collecting data, what our processes would be, and broke Baldwin

County into districts so we could be systematic about how we collect our data. I also met with

Dr. Oetter to give him the blight data from spring semester and talk about what kind of maps Dr.

Francis wanted made with the data.

On Wednesday the Center for Health and Social Issues had a team bonding day and Dr.

Francis took Cat, his grad assistant, Savannah, another CHSI intern, and me fishing. We had a

great time, despite it being very hot, and I think it was a good trip for all of us to take. I didn’t

know the other intern and had only interacted with Cat a few times, so it was nice to get to hang

out with everyone in a relaxed setting. We all definitely enjoyed the outing and got to get to

know each other personally which will be good since we’ll be working together all summer.

Also, it was very humorous watching Dr. Francis try to fish since he hadn’t done it before!

Unfortunately, nobody caught anything, but we did see a lot of turtles and had a fun time out

with each other of the office.

 On Thursday Cat and I met to go over my systematic review and she only offered a few

changes since it is still in the early stages, but it was nice to get feedback on what I had so far so

I would know what to change/include going forward. Once Dr. Francis was in, he reviewed my

Qualtrics survey and the research methodology I finished on Tuesday. We made a few edits to

the survey so it would be easier to answer while we are out collecting data and changed the

methodology write up to flow better and include more specific details about how we’re going to

collect the data. We also did some data management with the blight data I sent to Dr. Oetter as

some of the points from the GPS did not match the points, they recorded on Qualtrics. It was a

tedious process to find the error points because we really didn’t know how/where they came

from. Once we put the points on a map however, we discovered they were accidently tracked on

the GPS but not recorded in the survey. We excluded those points and then Dr. Oetter made a

heat map to show the density of overall blight in the Harrisburg community. Based on a 1-5 scale

with 5 being the most severe, it was easy to see which areas were most effected and which were

not. I took a working lunch on Thursday in order to keep my hours up.

On Friday I met with Dr. Oetter again to make more sample maps with the blight data.

He was able to get parcel data, a road map, and property owner details from the county GIS

office so we could include that information on our maps and analyze the blight data with

different variables. We limited the road map to the neighborhood block we wanted and then

joined the road data with the GPS points. After doing this we were able to assign the data points

to specific road segments in order to see which roads had the highest number of recorded points

and most severe blight. We ran statistics on the data points based on the blight scale index (1-5)

to see the average level of blight for each road and which roads had the highest overall level of

blight. I made the finalized sample maps and assigned symbology so it would be easy to
interpret, and we printed them out on posters so Dr. Francis could see them on a large scale and

tell us other maps or changes he wanted made. It was nice to work with Dr. Oetter because he

was able to show me different functions and capabilities of the ArcGIS and ArcPro software

programs. It’s good experience because I’ll be using these programs at JHU, and I still have

limited knowledge on them since I’ve only taken a few GIS courses. We also talked about which

projections and coordinate system I should use for my data with the food environments so it

would be in the proper format for our intended purposes. We talked about different variables we

could analyze the food environment data on such as proximity, tax bracket/income, availability

and transportation, and what maps would serve the greatest purpose in terms of what information

we wanted to display and show through our research. After meeting with Dr. Oetter, I made the

changes Cat suggested for my systematic review and continued to work on that for the rest of the

day.

Week #4 Journal

Monday (5/31/21) Memorial Day Holiday, 0 hours

Tuesday (6/1/21) 9:00am – 5:00pm – 8 hours
Wednesday (6/2/21) 9:00am – 5:00pm – 8 hours
Thursday (6/3/21) 9:00am – 5:00pm – 8 hours
Friday (6/4/21) 9:00am – 5:00pm – 8 hours

Weekly Hours: 32
Total Hours to Date: 146

On Monday I did not attended my internship due to the Memorial Day holiday.

On Tuesday, Dr. Francis, Cat, and I discussed how we would go about starting to collect

our data points. We decided to start with the southwestern side of the county and tracked

physical food locations starting at the Piggly Wiggly on the south side. We stayed close to that

area in the morning mapping points because we had a lunch meeting with the mayor downtown.
At the meeting we talked about the college partnering with the City of Milledgeville to help with

revitalization and other health issues. The mayor is very sweet and was genuinely interested in

the partnership Dr. Francis wants to form. We talked about a possible Land Bank, which parts of

the county are actually designated as county vs. city, and what efforts had already been initiated.

I was able to show her the sample maps I had made for the blight data from the Harrisburg

community, and she was very interested in the research CHSI had been doing and plans to do

based on the community needs assessments that were completed. The meeting went very well,

and I’m glad I was able to go because it was nice to see a high official from local government sit

down, listen, and genuinely be interested in ways to help their community members. After our

lunch meeting, we continued to map food locations on the south side and the adjoining

communities.

On Wednesday, our data collection continued, and we worked our way through Coopers

community and up the western border of Baldwin County. I stopped at the Milledgeville

Visitor’s Center before we started and picked up a county map and a book that had a list of

restaurants and other food vendors. The map proved to be a good thing to have as we were able

to figure out where we had been in relation to where we were going. Since we’re covering the

county in districts, we can’t use the GPS on our phones because we don’t have a final set

location/destination. The maps on our phones, however, were good for showing local gas

stations, convenience stores and so on, in the areas none of us were familiar with. One of the

major things I noticed while we were out collecting data is that food, and especially healthy food,

is not available or even accessible in some parts of Baldwin County. In some areas we were so

far out from any grocery store or gas station that it seemed impossible for residents to access

food without having to travel considerable distances. This research has definitely shown me the
inequalities in food access that rural community members face, and it is disheartening to know

that in all rural communities across the nation, the same challenges are faced by hundreds of

others. So far, this experience has sparked an interest in me for rural health and I hope I can

continue to learn and maybe incorporate it into my future career.

On Thursday, we picked up where we left off on Wednesday and continued up the

western border of the county to the lake. This is an extremely rural part of the county and we

often found ourselves on dirt roads and in the middle of logging operations. We stayed within

highway 212 and 22 and covered the area in between them. Same as Wednesday, there were

hardly any food options for residents aside from gas stations and convenience stores. I was

surprised to see however, that some of these little gas station stores did have a wide selection of

fruits, vegetables, and meat available for local residents. While the stores did not have the full

range of items found in a grocery store, it was good to see that healthy food was easily accessible

in some locations far from the town center. By the end of the day, we had mapped 40 points in

total for the week. I will say I expected it to be more but after we drove around in very rural

locations, I was surprised the total was as high as it was. A majority of these points were all gas

stations and convenience stores, with only a handful of points that were not.

On Friday, we didn’t continue our data collection and instead I worked on my systematic

review. Dr. Francis had sent me his edits earlier in the week, so I worked on making those

changes and adding the new sections he recommend. I had the larger broad sections such as

methodology, results, and discussion, but he had included other minor subheadings I needed to

include within those major headings that I hasn’t even thought about. These subheadings

included types of studies included, type of population, outcomes and outcome measures, search

strategy, and quite a few more. While it was overwhelming to see all these new sections, I was
glad for them because it gave me some more direction on what I had to include. I was feeling

stuck for a while with my review and wasn’t sure where to include certain information, but the

new sections led me though all the information I still needed to include and finally gave me a

place to put it. I will admit more goes into a systematic review than I originally thought, but it

will be good experience for me to have going forward. Overall, this week was good, and it was

nice to finally be out in the field collecting data and actually see the inequalities in food

environments we had talked about before beginning. Please note, on Friday I took a working

lunch so I wouldn’t lose more hours since Monday was a holiday.

Week #5 Journal

Monday (6/7/21) 9:00am-6:30pm – 9.5 hours

Tuesday (6/8/21) 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Wednesday (6/9/21) 9:00am- 6:30pm – 9.5 hours
Thursday (6/10/21) 9:00am- 7:00pm – 10 hours
Friday (6/11/21) 9:00am-4:00pm – 7 hours

Weekly Hours: 44
Total hours to Date: 190

On Monday, I made finalized maps for all the blight data based on the variables we

wanted to compare them to. In total I had four maps, one showing all 151 blight points in

graduated colors to represent their blight index score, one for how many blighted locations per

road segment, mean blight score per road segment, and a heatmap showing density of proximal

blight. After finishing those maps, Dr. Francis and I spent the whole day out in the county

tracking food establishments. We covered a large amount of North Columbia and the

surrounding side streets and were able to get 85 locations recorded despite it pouring rain all day.
 On Tuesday, I updated my blight maps from Monday based on some changes Dr. Francis

wanted made and then I worked on some other things I had been needing to do for our physical

food environment research. I updated our Qualtrics survey to have better worded questions

because while we were in the field, we realized some of the questions we wanted to ask were not

inclusive of enough food types. For example, one of our questions’ answer choices only included

the presence of fresh and/or frozen fruits and vegetables, however, we realized a lot of what we

were seeing was processed fruits/veggies which meant we were saying ‘No’ the store didn’t have

any when in reality the store did, they were just processed. So, we had to update the survey to

better match what we had been observing in the stores. I also downloaded the data we had

collected so far to check for major errors and delete any submissions that were accidental.

On Wednesday, Dr. Francis and I mapped more food establishments in the morning

before he had to leave for the afternoon. After we finished in the morning, I continued to collect

data for the rest of the food establishments on North Columbia we hadn’t covered yet. Once I

finished with the places on North Columbia, I went to the restaurants downtown on Hancock to

collect the data for them. It took a lot longer to collect data for the restaurants downtown than

anywhere else because all the powerlines block the satellites and I had to google the menu every

time to see what they foods they offered. It took a while, but I enjoyed being able to walk around

and collect the data points instead of the places being very spread out and having to drive.

On Thursday, I met with Dr. Oetter to print a poster of the blight maps I had made earlier

in the week and to go over some other spatial analysis tools that are available in ArcPro. Before I

made my maps, he talked about one way for manipulating the data, but when I was making them,

I did it a different way and yielded the same results, so we were able to talk about how the

different features do the same thing but change the data differently, which was interesting to hear
because it’s still pretty new to me. I also made a new boundary map for the Oconee Heights

neighborhood so Dr. Francis could include it in a presentation and the meeting later on. Thursday

at 5:00pm we went to the Oconee Heights collaborative meeting and got to hear from the

community members. I have not been to an Oconee Heights meeting before, so it was interesting

to hear how the concerns of this community are different than those in Cooper’s or Harrisburg.

This community is where CHSI’s blight research came from so the meeting mainly focused on

that topic and I was able to explain my maps and the data, which was a cool experience. The

meeting went very well and all of the community members who came had something to say or an

issue they wanted to address, so it was nice to see that the community wants to be involved and

participate.

On Friday CHSI had a ‘staff meeting’ to discuss the Board of Trustee’s meeting we

would be attending later. We talked about the presentation, how to explain our initiatives and

fixed other minor things in the presentation. Myself and one of the other interns were told last

minute that we would be presenting so I was anxious for the actual meeting. During the BOT

meeting we presented on all the projects the center has been doing, current and upcoming

research, needed resources, and more. It was interesting to be in the meeting because I had no

idea who or what to expect. Our presentation went really well despite some technical issues, and

all of the board members seemed to be very interested in and proud of what we had been doing.

It was cool to see some higher up members of the GCSU community take interest in what the

center had been doing in the surrounding communities. After the meeting, I worked with the

newest food survey data we had collected to look for errors or accidental points. I also compared

those data points to the number of waypoints on the GPS to make sure we hadn’t missed tracking

a waypoint. At the end of this week, we had over 170 data points and had at least one
establishment in each of our main NAICS categories and subcategories. Looking at the data now

it is easy to see that many communities who are far off the main road have a harder time

accessing fresh produce and healthy foods. We still have a decent amount of the county left, but I

think once we’ve collected all the data the different themes and trends I’ve been seeing in current

research will be very evident. Overall, this was a good week and I’m eager to see where the rest

of our research takes me!

Week #6 Journal

Monday (6/14/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours

Tuesday (6/15/21): 9:00am-5:30pm – 8.5 hours
Wednesday (6/16/21): 8:00am-1:00pm & 1:30pm-5:00pm – 8.5 hours
Thursday (6/17/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Friday (6/18/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours

Weekly Hours: 41
Total Hours to Date: 231

On Monday, I helped Dr. Francis write a manuscript for a paper on the Blight Research

CHSI has been doing. I have been working with the data from this research to make maps, but I

had no part in the research process or any of the collecting, so when I have to work on/write

things for it I sometimes feel disconnected from the research because I don’t really know what to

say. This is a reoccurring thing I’ve notice because many of the meetings and presentations we

give revolve around this research. The CHSI intern whose research project this is, graduated and

they haven’t been back, so it’s difficult to present and talk about this research when I was just

kind of tossed into it and have no stake in it. Working on the manuscript with Dr. Francis,

however, did give me a chance to see how one should be written and what should be included. I

always hear about manuscripts and know what they are, but I’ve never had the chance to write or
be a part of one, so that will be good experience and allow me more exposure into of the research

field.

Tuesday was a busy day full of meetings for CHSI and Dr. Francis was unavailable, so

Cat and I attended in his place. The first meeting was the Harrisburg Collaborative community

meeting. We met the new Community in Schools director, discussed the new splash pad, Habitat

for Humanity’s partnership, and upcoming community events. We also talked about the

Harrisburg food bank and how there is always left-over food that can be potentially donated to

other churches and foodbanks. CHSI hopes to be able to donate some of the left-over food to the

Hardwick Baptist church which is a stakeholder in another community we work with. Tommy

French and the other Harrisburg members were more than happy to donate some of the food to

Hardwick so that was good. The next meeting was with Tom Miles, Dr. Shawn Brooks, the SGA

president, and Shannon Gardner to discuss food insecure students and what GCSU could do to

help them. Honestly this meeting was disappointing because GCSU has no resources to help

students with these needs. It also seemed like Dr. Books was unaware about the needs of some

students which was interesting as he is the VP of student affairs. Despite this, Tom Miles and the

SGA President seemed very knowledge about what other universities do and the different

resources they have already established to help students. The meeting was more just to see the

needs and current actions of GCSU, but CHSI hopes to help create some form of assistance for

food insecure students. The final meeting of the day was the Hardwick Collaborative meeting

and it mainly focused on the possible community clinic and the little house the church wants to

give to CHSI. This meeting was very beneficial and Dr. Noviello had a lot of great information

to give to Pastor Adkins about how things would work legally, how the clinic could be set up,
different needed supplies and equipment, and how CHSI could obtain funding to help with

renovations and sustainability of the clinic.

Wednesday was the Harrisburg Foodbank, and it was a busy, very hot day. CHSI usually

takes blood pressure and hands out health materials to of all the community members who come

by to get food, but the center had very few volunteers show up to help with the distribution, so

we had to get on the assembly line and help pack boxes. It was hot but rewarding because I knew

the food was going to people who really need it. I was surprised though, while Cat and I were

packing boxes we noticed a lot of the packaged foods were already expired or solid green with

mold. The food comes from the Middle Georgia Food Bank, and it made us stop and think about

the quality of the foods we were giving out. By the end of the day, we had a good size pile of

moldy bread, cheese, and deli meats, so it was disheartening to see. After the foodbank I worked

on making a list of all the food establishments we hadn’t been to yet. This was very tedious as

we typically stuck to highways and larger side streets, so I was basically going through the

county street by street on Google Maps to find little gas stations or restaurants we had missed.

On Thursday I (hopefully) finished my list of food places we hadn’t been to and then

compared those locations to ones we already had to make sure I didn’t have one we have already

been to. I was surprised to see that some of the ones we missed were on roads we had been down

already and were in plain sight, for example the CVS on the southside. I’m glad I rechecked!

After finishing that I worked on creating merch for CHSI. Dr. Francis wants to get everyone

matching CHSI shirts to wear when we’re out collection data or attending community

events/meetings so we look more unified. He gave me full creative freedom and I had fun

making different shirts and other promotional items for the center. Cat and I then worked on our

Blight presentation for the Board of Commissioners meeting. Dr. Francis will be on vacation
when that meeting is being held so Cat and I have to present the data. Since this isn’t our

research, we will really have to familiarize ourselves with the data and the intended outcomes.

We’re both a little stressed about it but we’re hopeful the meeting will go well, and the

commissioners will appreciation our possible strategies and solutions.

On Friday, Dr. Francis sent me updated edits/changes for my systematic review and I

worked on that for the day. I can honestly say this review has been challenging in ways I didn’t

expect and has not been my favorite part of my internship. Since I haven’t had to do this type of

research before it still feels really overwhelming to work on. Learning how to write what I’m

trying to say in “research language” is difficult and sometimes can be hard to articulate. The

major changes Dr. Francis has suggested is how things are worded. This is something that I

assume I will get better at over time and with more experience, but right now it’s definitely

challenging. I am glad, however, to be learning how research, writing, and research processes,

work before going to grad school. I think if I had done my internship elsewhere, I would not be

as prepared as I currently feel going into my program in the fall. With this though, I don’t think I

want my career to revolve around research. I enjoy it, but I can’t see myself enjoying it enough

to make a career.

Week #7 Journal

Monday (6/21/21)- 9:00am-6:00pm – 9 hours

Tuesday (6/22/21)- 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Wednesday (6/23/21)-9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Thursday (6/24/21)-9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Friday (6/25/21)- 9:00am- 4:00pm – 7 hours

Weekly Hours: 40

Total Hours to Date: 271

 This week was pretty slow for CHSI, and we didn’t do much outside of the office other

than a few times. On Monday, Dr. Francis, Cat, and I went out in the community to finish

mapping the physical food locations we had not been to yet. After mapping those locations, we

have a little less than 200 food establishments and the data for them. It seems like a lot, but in

comparison to how many people reside in Baldwin County, roughly 45,000, it’s a low number.

Once we returned to campus, Dr. Francis and I worked on the Blight presentation Cat, and I have

to give at the Board of Commissioners meeting in July. We made small edits to the information

and added some proposed solutions for how the county could address blight and revitalization.

I’m interested to see how the county will react to this information and I hope they understand

why addressing blight in the community is important.

On Tuesday, Cat and I attended the Harrisburg Community Collaborative meeting, and

we discussed the Back-to-School Bash, an opening day party for the Splash Pad and a College

Day where GMC wants to come out and promote college admissions. We also talked about a

potential social work clinic that Dr. Francis wants his practicum student, Shannon, to run at the

monthly foodbanks and elsewhere. We also got to see the community gardens at the meeting and

Tommy had squash for all of us that had been grown in the garden. After the meeting I worked

on calculating community asset ratios based on the blight data for Oconee Heights and then

continued to work on my systematic review.

On Wednesday, I started my day by working on my systematic review and trying to

finish up some of the edits Dr. Francis had made. I’m almost finished with my review so it’s

exciting to know that soon it will be done and on the way to being published, hopefully! Later in

the day, Dr. Francis and I downloaded the physical food environment survey data and began to

clean it up. We used the statistical analysis software Stata, and he showed me how to use it and
what to do with the data. For the survey questions that had more than one possible answer I had

to create new variables and insert the correct answer values (0=no, 1=yes) for all 180+ data

points. It was tedious to go line by line to make sure all the data was correct, but I enjoyed

managing all the data and learning how to use the Stata software.

On Thursday, I finished the small amount of data management I had left from

Wednesday. In total I had to create 13 new variables for the questions about fruit, vegetables,

meat, and plant-based alternatives, and then based on the answer, (fresh, processed, frozen, etc.)

I applied the correct value (0 or 1). After I finished working with the food environment data, I

worked on my systematic review. Dr. Francis wants a “finished” version by Friday, so I have

been trying to add all the final sections and little corrections to the body of the review.

On Friday, I had an interview with Brittiny Johnson who does PR for Georgia College.

Dr. Noviello recommended me for a Frontpage spotlight, so Brittiny was meeting with me to talk

about the research I was doing with CHSI. I thought it was very nice that the Dean recommended

me for the article and I’m glad I have been able to get to know her over the past few weeks. She

is very involved with the center and always comes to our community meetings and the foodbank,

so she knows firsthand what we’re doing. It’s nice to see higher GC officials recognize the work

the center is doing and come volunteer at community events. After my interview, I finished up

the body of my systematic review and worked on all the additional files and appendixes. I

finalized my data extraction table, made the search strategy sheet that has all the key words and

MeSH terms we used during the search, the flow chat that shows how many studies were

included/excluded, and created a Gap Map to highlight areas of research that were lacking. When

I finished all the additional files, I re-read everything to check for major errors or corrections I

needed to make, and then sent it to Dr. Francis for him to read. I feels good to have my review
“finished”, I know I’ll have to make some corrections before we try to publish it, but step one is

done!

Week #8 Journal

Monday (6/28/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours

Tuesday (6/29/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Wednesday (6/30/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Thursday (7/1/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Friday (7/2/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours

Weekly Hours: 40
Total Hours to Date: 311

On Monday, I took our data points from every food establishment and transferred them

from the GPS device to Basecamp, Garmin’s mapping software. Once the points were in

basecamp, I deleted the sample points we had taken and exported all the points as a KML file.

Once in the KLM file I could import them into ArcPro and make a sample map to see the points

and edit the data. I didn’t do more than that because Dr. Francis wanted me to show him the

steps of importing the data and moving it to ArcPro later in the week. I also looked for journals

that would be good for publication of my systematic review and found a few that I thought

would be good. Dr. Francis hasn’t read my “final” version yet, so I haven’t been able to make

final changes or edits. Also on Monday, Cat and I worked some more on our presentation for the

county commissioners meeting. We ran through the presentation as practice and took notes based

on what Dr. Francis wants us to say during the meeting.

On Tuesday, we attended the weekly Harrisburg Collaborative meeting and talked about

a lot of upcoming community events. We discussed the Back-to-School bash, the splashpad

opening, Shannon’s pop-up social work clinic, and the future of the Harrisburg food banks. This
month there was an excess of food delivered and the foods were almost expired, so we talked

about other options for the extras like other food banks and churches. I also worked on writing a

paper explaining what my physical food research was and the outcomes we anticipate to send to

Brittiny Johnson for my spotlight in FrontPage. I explained why this type of research is

important and how it can benefit the county government and even larger corporations like

Walmart or Dollar General.

On Wednesday, the photographer came to take pictures of Dr. Francis and I for the

frontpage article. We took pictures in the research pod and outside on campus. After our picture

Dr. Francis and I went to the geography lab so I could show him how to use ArcPro and transfer

the data points. After I showed him that, we tried to join our data with the map points, but we ran

into a bunch of issues with the data from the excel sheet not linking correctly to the map points.

Since I couldn’t join the data yet, I showed Dr. Francis other functions of ArcPro and different

analyses we could run based off what we wanted to show. Since we collected so many points and

it’s at a county scale, we could make maps of just the different types of establishments, and

different specific areas in the county. We also talked about different comparisons we wanted to

do like high income areas vs. low income, travel distance/access to food, and where fresh fruits

and veggies are available.

On Thursday I worked on the blight research manuscript and added a section about the

spatial analyses I did with the data. I talked about the different maps I made showing the average

blight score per road segment, the overall count per road, the density of blighted locations and

what functions I had to run to get the desired outcomes. After I worked on the manuscript, I

switched over to working on different internship things. I didn’t want to wait until the last

second, so I built my whole e-portfolio so all I have to do later is add the needed documents like
my journals, the presentation, and so on. I also worked on updating my resume and creating the

PowerPoint for my presentation. At the end of the day Dr. Francis and I went to play tennis as

another bonding activity. It was fun to be out of the office doing something, and I learned that I

am terrible at tennis.

On Friday, Dr. Francis bought the Stata software for the computer in the research pod so I

could continue to work on it while he is gone. I set up the software and continued to work with

the data. I made new fields so I could combine all the data on the availability of fruits and

vegetables for each physical food location. I combined fresh and frozen for both fruits and

veggies and left processed as another field. We mainly want to see the availability of fresh fruits

and veggies so making the new fields allows us to do that without having to include the

processed foods. I also went back to the geography lab to see if I could get our data sheet and the

map points to join. To join them they have to have an identical ‘join field’ and they do, the

waypoint code, but I still could not get them to join. Both fields were in ‘numerical’ format, and

I tried to troubleshoot the issues, but it still wouldn’t work. Next week, I hope to connect with

Dr. Oetter to see if he can help me figure out why they are not joining. I also looked into how to

do some of the different analyses we want to run in ArcPro. I’m still new to the ArcPro program

so I’m having to learn where to find different geoprocessing tools and functions based on what

we want to do. Since I’ve only taken two GIS classes, I’ve enjoyed getting to learn more about

the program though my internship. It has definitely been great practice and experience for my

master’s program.
 Week #9 Journal

Monday (7/5/21): Holiday – 0 hours

Tuesday (7/6/21): 9:00am-6:00pm – 9 hours
Wednesday (7/7/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Thursday (7/8/21): 9:00am-5:30pm – 8.5 hours
Friday (7/9/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours

Weekly Hours: 33.5

Total Hours to Date: 344.5

Did not attend internship on Monday due to 4th of July holiday.

On Tuesday, Cat and I attended the weekly Harrisburg Community Collaborative

meeting. Tommy showed us how the new splash pad works and all the water accessories that still

have to be added. It’s a great little play area for the kids in the community and I’m glad they

were able to finish it so quickly. We also discussed Shannon’s social work clinic and the

different requirements the center would have meet in order for the clinic to happen. For example,

the room where she will meet with clients has to have a window in the door for safety reasons, so

we discussed how that could be done with the existing door or if a new one should be ordered.

We discussed next week’s food bank and the plan for extra food, as well as the future of the

community center and what that means for the Harrisburg community. After the Harrisburg

meeting Cat and I prepared for our presentation at the Board of Commissioners meeting. We

printed all the maps I had made and copies of the Harrisburg Master Plan. Our presentation was

about the blight research conducted in Oconee Heights and possible solutions or remediation

strategies. All of the county commissioners were very impressed with our presentation and

decided to increase their monthly limit on addressing blighted properties. It’s currently two per

month so increasing this limit will be good for the community because blight will be addressed

in a more efficient manner. There was also a healthy discussion about land banks, and they were
excited to hear that when we met with the mayor, the city seemed to be on board with the idea of

a land bank.

On Wednesday, Cat and I did ‘housekeeping’ things for the center and prepared for other

meetings we have later in the week. We worked on an article for the COHS newsletter and

gathered information to send to a reporter who was at the BOC meeting and wants to write about

our presentation. We also looked into ordering more promotional materials for the Foodbank.

We usually give out pamphlets on diabetes, smoking cessation, cardiovascular disease and some

others, but we ran out at the last event. However, we found out that GCSU is in a blackout period

for purchasing things, so we were unsuccessful in that. This also prevented us from ordering our

CHSI merchandise which we hoped to have in before upcoming events such as the Back-to-

School Bash and the grand opening of the splashpad. We also prepared some information about

our presentation at the BOC to give to community members in Oconee Heights at our meeting on

Thursday.

On Thursday, Cat and I attended a meeting at Hardwick Baptist church to discuss the

community clinic. The Dean came with us, and she had an update about how the church could

gift the house to the college. We came to the conclusion that the best option, if possible, is for the

church to gift the house to the College of Health Science. The Dean still has to look into

potential legal routes, but Pastor Adkins seemed excited about the process. We also discussed

needed a physician to lead/oversee the clinic so that nurse practitioners can come in and work. A

major part of this meeting was talking about the “social justice” part of the clinic and what Dr.

Francis envisioned for that. We talked about Shannon possibly having her social work clinic at

this location as well as Harrisburg, and what “social justice” means to the community. One of the

church members suggested possibly having a legal aid in the clinic to help people who get stuck
in legal situations with the county, landlords, and so on. We also discussed using the land next to

the house for community gardens, a possible soccer field, and a space for exercise science

students to meet and lead community classes or work on practicums. It’s been very exciting to be

a part of the community clinic talks at Hardwick because I have never experienced the start-up of

something like this and it’s been interesting to hear how everything has to come together and

what steps have to be taken in order for the clinic to be operational. I’ll be long gone from

Milledgeville by the time the clinic is operational, but I know it will be exactly what the

Hardwick community needs, and they will benefit from it greatly. Cat and I also attended the

Oconee Heights Community Collaborative meeting, which turned about to be an interesting

meeting. Since we presented at the BOC meeting earlier in the week, we suspected the meeting

would be full of community members wanting to hear the outcome of our presentation. However,

we were surprised when we got there and only a single community member was present. We

waited a while, but nobody came to unlock the church and no other community members showed

up. So, we had the meeting in the church parking lot and presented the outcomes of the BOC

meeting to the single community member and asked if there were other issues in the community

he wanted addressed. He was pleased to hear that the commissioners were willing to increase

their blight remediation plans and was excited for the future of his community. He also said one

of the major concerns he has is regarding crime in the community, but he knows that it is an

issue that will take time and other efforts to control.

On Friday, I tried again to join our physical food data with the map points on ArcPro, but

was unsuccessful again. It’s frustrating that it won’t work because I have edited the data to have

an identical join field, but it still won’t join properly. This time it joined about half of the points

but didn’t join the others. Despite this, I tried to run a few other functions that didn’t require the
additional data and tried to set buffers of 10 miles around the grocery stores for

transportation/access analysis but that also did not work. I have run into quite a few issues with

this data and getting the geoprocessing to work has proved to be challenging. I’m hoping when

Dr. Oetter gets back from his trip he’ll be able to help me resolve some issues and offer other

ideas for analysis. After working in ArcPro, I didn’t really have a much to do for the center

specifically, so I started working on my internship reflection paper. The reflection paper has

allowed me to think back on how my time at the center has changed/influenced what I want to do

in the field of public health and how I can achieve those goals. I’m excited to move forward in

my academic career after my internship ends, and I’m glad that my internship has also allowed

me to make an impact in communities in Baldwin County. It has definitely been a very

rewarding experience.

Week #10 Journal

Monday (7/12/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours

Tuesday (7/13/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Wednesday (7/14/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Thursday (7/15/21): 9:00am-6:30pm – 9.5 hours
Friday (7/16/21) 9:00am-4:00pm – 7 hours

Weekly Hours: 40.5

Total Hours to date: 385

On Monday I did not have any specific tasks to complete so I edited and reviewed my

systematic review. Dr. Francis has not yet had the chance to read over the ‘final’ version to offer

edits/suggestions, so I reread it slowly to look for any errors or sections that I thought needed

improvement. It has been a while since I’ve looked at it so it was good to read again and see if

there were any major things I would change. One thing I did take note of was that my review is
somewhat short compared to others I’ve read online. Since this was my first time writing one, I

know my writing was not perfect and I wasn’t sure how to compile my thoughts so mine

definitely does not compare to published articles. The edits I made to my review were mainly in

the methodology section about the data extraction, themes, and data selection. There were some

paragraphs that I read that I thought could be written better, but I’m interested to see how my

edits compare to Dr. Francis’s. I think my discussion section and where I talked about the

different themes in the literature was very strong and covered the points I wanted to address well.

After I reviewed my paper, I started to look for other research articles that specifically related to

using GIS in food environment research. I wanted to see how different researchers spatially

analyzed their data to know if what they did could be applied to our data. A lot of what I saw is

similar to what we want to do and included geoprocesses like buffers, kernel density, travel

milage, and more. It was good to see that what we have brainstormed about doing is effective

and works in other food environment research.

On Tuesday Cat, Shannon, and I attended the weekly Harrisburg Community

Collaborative meeting. This meeting was interested to sit in because we were able to meet the

new Assistant Dean for the college of Health Science and he offered some new thoughts on some

of the community issues we usually talk about. This week there was a big discussion on the

baseball field that’s at the community center. The Assistant Dean used to work in 3rd world

countries setting up baseball fields and supplying equipment, so he said he would be able to get

in contact with some colleagues he used to have to try to get the baseball field up and running.

He is going to apply for an MLB grant to see if they would provide funding for the field and all

of the Harrisburg communities members seemed very excited about that! We also discussed

building a new greenhouse in the community garden so they can continue to grow fruits and
veggies during the cooler months and talked about different ‘work sites’ for the GC Gives day in

August. Students assigned to the community center will be helping to clean up the yard/exterior

of the building and will be assisting local elderly community members with their yards if they

need it. Also on Tuesday, I revisited my Stata datasheet for the food environment data to see if

there were other statistical things I could do with it. I created three new categories of optimal

health, moderately healthy and suboptimal health to classify each location. The locations were

assigned to each class depending on if they offered fresh/frozen fruits and veggies, some fresh

and processed foods, or only processed foods. This allowed me to see just how many healthy vs.

unhealthy food places there are in Milledgeville, and the latter was the most common.

On Wednesday, I didn’t have any specific things to do for the center, so I continued to

work on my e-portfolio and started to outline what I wanted to include in my presentation on my

PowerPoint slides. Further outlining my project presentation helped me gather my thoughts

about different things I wanted to include. I have a section for my project, the food environment

research and the systematic review, but I also wanted to include the other things I’ve been doing

with the center such as the community meetings, the foodbank, the blight research presentations

and the work I have done with that data. I also added a section to my e-portfolio specifically

talking about CHSI and the work the center does. I’m proud of my e-portfolio and I’m excited to

have all my final documents on it so it is complete. With career stuff in mind, I also looked into

creating a LinkedIn profile so I can include that on my future resumes and my in e-portfolio. I

also checked into different public health jobs in the Chapel Hill/Durham area so I could see what

qualifications I lacked vs. had for going into the job market. It was good for me to see the

different requirements for entry-level jobs, but I was also shocked to see how much experience

entry-level jobs require. I’m nervous that I will be unqualified when applying for jobs but I’m
not going to let that stop me because any entry-level position is a step through the door towards

the career that I want.

Thursday, I worked on more things for the internship class. I continued working on my

resume to finalize it with the sections required from the rubric. My original resume that I used

when applying for grad school did not include an objective, so I added that section and

reformatted what I currently had. I also updated my honors section to include my awards from

spring semester, president’s list, and removed one of my volunteer experiences from the Work

section so that it would fit on one page. After I finished that I added my resume to my e-portfolio

and worked on combining all my journals so far into one document so I can add it to my e-

portfolio when the time comes. Later, Cat, Shannon and I attended the Coopers Community

collaborative meeting. Many of the usual community members who show up were able to come,

so the conversation mainly focused on different improvements/renovations that could be possible

with the upcoming TSPLOST. The county manager, Carlos Tobar, was at the meeting so he was

able to tell us all about the different requirements and funding needed for projects under

TSPLOST. The community members were most interested in addressing speeding traffic and

speed humps, fixing the walking trail at the park, or fixing the ditches next to the railroads. The

Coopers group is always very loud and vocal about their community needs so it was interesting

to hear them discuss what Mr. Tobar said would be possible with the TSPLOST. There is not a

lot of money dedicated to fixing small community issues in the TSPLOST so a few of the

members were less than thrilled about that, but they are always glad when county officials are

there face-to-face to discuss community issues. We also talked about fixing the ball fields at the

park and other amenities community members want to see like a low ropes course or new

playgrounds.
On Friday, I revised Cat and I’s notes on the blight research and made some changes to our

presentation. We found out that we will be presenting to the City Council on the 27th so I wanted

to make sure our presentation still portrayed our data well. At the Cooper’s community meeting

Commissioner Sammy Hall was there and he asked Cat and I about the blight data and if we had

addresses for all the properties the center had tracked so the county could have a list.

Unfortunately, Dr. Francis and the other CHSI interns did not record the addresses of the

properties, so I started to make a list of addresses I thought corresponded to the GPS points.

When they were collecting the data, they only recording the Northing and Easting of the points

so I had to use google maps and see if I could determine the address of where the

Northing/Easting landed. There are over 151 points, so it will take a while to make a hopefully

accurate list. Some of the properties also have more than one GPS point on them so I will have to

be careful doing those to make sure I give the right addresses to the right points since the

blighted level (1-5) is specific for each point. Overall, this was a calm, productive week for me.

Week #11 Journal

Monday (7/19/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours

Tuesday (7/20/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Wednesday (7/21/21): 7:30am-5:00pm – 9.5 hours
Thursday (7/22/21): 9:00am-5:00pm – 8 hours
Friday (7/23/21): 9:00am-4:00pm – 7 hours

Weekly Hours: 40.5

Total Hours to Date: 425.5

On Monday I did not have specific tasks to complete for the center, so I worked on

finalizing my e-portfolio and my presentation slides. I actually changed a good bit of my slides
so that they would flow better while I was presenting the information and re-ordered them with

the most important information first. I also dug through all the photos we’ve taken this summer

so I would have some good ones to include in the presentation. After doing some edits to my

internship stuff I started to make a list of the different analyses Dr. Francis and I wanted to do

with the food environment data so I could talk to Dr. Oetter about it later in the week. We

decided to do a heat map, travel distance maps, census block groups differences, like availability

per group, access, and more. Dr. Francis also wants to see if health data is available so we could

do health analyses. Afterwards, I started to plan out some of the different things I wanted to

discuss with Dr. Oetter. He has been a great resource for me while preparing for my master’s

program since I am so new to the field of spatial analysis. I have to have a computer that can run

all of ESRI’s software and different programs, and my MacBook cannot do that, so I want to talk

to him about different computers and the experiences he has to I can make an informed purchase.

I also want to ask him about different hard drives and external storage devices that would be

good to use because everything I do at Johns Hopkins has to be virus protected and encrypted.

Tuesday, Shannon and I attended the Harrisburg community meeting. This week we

discussed a lot of things and even go to meet Dr. Phillis Hatcher who is running for congress for

the 10th district, which houses Harrisburg. We talked about the splashpad accessories being

added, how Baldwin County BOE is donating supplies and bookbags for every student, and

different donations the schools needed. A few of the schools in Baldwin County have

laundry/essentials rooms for the students to use. These rooms have toiletries, supplies, and

different things students may not have access to at home. Northridge Church wants to do a

donation drive to stock those rooms before school is back so we talked about logistics and what

donations could be accepted versus not. We also got to hear all the upcoming events that Allied
Arts is hosting. They are having a wood carving exhibit, a blood drive, and a band coming to

play at the First Friday event. Afterwards, I investigated some more campus food insecurity

projects that have been successful. Shannon, Cat, and I had a meeting with Dr. Brooks a while

ago about implementing something at Georgia College and Shannon wanted to see if there were

more resources available that she could share at their next meeting. I will not be in Milledgeville

for the next meeting, so I was happy to help her out.

Wednesday, I got to campus early so I could pick up the tent and materials we usually

take to the foodbank. This week we handed out waters to the people coming through the line

since it was so hot. We also got to help pack boxes and work the distribution line this week. The

food for this month’s food bank was much better than last time but was kind of an odd

assortment. Last time a lot of the food was molded and out of date, but this time everything was

fresh, and everyone got a box of vegetables too. This is the first foodbank that I had volunteered

at where they gave out fresh vegetables, so I was happy to see that. The rest of the food however

was all meat or processed foods, so it took away from the fresh vegetables some. Afterwards, I

went to the geography lab again to see if I could figure out why my data wasn’t joining with the

map so I could tell Dr. Oetter the issues when we meet. I once again couldn’t get it to work even

after I tried running different formulas in excel.

On Thursday, I met with Dr. Francis to start reviewing my final systematic review with

him. We were only able to get through a few sections before we had to meet with Dr. Oetter, but

it was good to get started. I still haven’t mastered writing in a research style so a lot of the

changes he made were related to that. Also, when I was writing the review, I hopped around in

sections and wrote them truthfully, unsystematically, so some of my citations were incorrectly

ordered. For example, I wrote my third paragraph first so the citations in that section were 1-7
and the earlier sections were 8-10+. While we were editing the paper, we kept running into issues

with the citations so Dr. Francis downloaded EndNote for me to so could enter all my citations

and add them back in the correct order. This was honestly a learning experience for me because

as I was writing I hadn’t considered how I would have to reorder and fix my citations at the end.

I’m glad this was something that Dr. Francis had an easy fix for, and I didn’t have to go through

and do it all by hand. After we worked on my review for a while, we met with Dr. Oetter to go

over the maps we wanted to make and different data that is available for us to use. We talked

about incorporating the American Community survey data so we could do different bivariate

analyses and other variables we could compare them too. Dr. Francis had to leave for another

meeting, so I spent the rest of the afternoon with Dr. Oetter. He was able to fix my excel

datasheet and get the data and map points to join. He also struggled with it and told me I had

tried all the correct things; it was just an issue on ArcPro’s side that was preventing them from

joining. He had to rewrite the data in a different way but then he was able to get it to work. I’m

glad he was able to do it and that I had been doing the correct thing to begin with. After that, he

showed me all of the census data we could use and how it was broken down. He made some

sample maps with the data on a block group level, and we discussed the differences we could

already see emerging. The bulk of food establishment in Baldwin are on North Columbia and

downtown on Hancock Street so all of the block groups that did not include those barley had any

food establishment. He also made a map showing average income and we could see that the

block groups further out, where there are not food establishments, had lower income levels. This

correlates with some of the research I was seeing while doing my systematic review, so it was

neat to see our research aligning with what I had read. Also, Dr. Oetter is incredibly
knowledgeable about ArcPro and the different functions, so it was cool to see him make maps

and analyze data so quickly.

Friday, I met with Dr. Oetter again to discuss more about what we could do with the food

environment data. I told him about the data set I had in Stata so he complied all the data

spreadsheets from the American Community Survey and some of the census data into one sheet

so I could combine it with my Stata data. This would allow me to look for different similar

characteristics that I could use to create “sets” that would allow for further analysis. He also gave

me access to ESRI’s Community Analysis software which uses data on a smaller scale instead of

national. It has different functions such as travel time buffers, and all the county census data. It is

a great tool for GIS analyses on a community scale. I didn’t know this software existed, so it was

cool to see and use another one of ESRI’s software. We also looked for county level data that

includes health topics like diabetes and obesity. Dr. Francis wants to do a health analysis with

our data and existing data, but Dr. Oetter and I couldn’t find county level data. Most, if not all

the data available for use form the CDC and DPH is state level so we wouldn’t be able to apply it

to our data which is county level.