SPORT Center – Systems-Oriented Pediatric Obesity Research and Training

Summary

Summary: As Director of the Education and Training Core for an NIH-funded center of excellence on Systems-Related Pediatric Obesity Research and Training, I led efforts to support and mentor over a dozen pre- and post-doctoral trainees in applying systems science methods to public health research. This experience enabled me to refine a participatory research framework that combined visual qualitative tools and shared modeling platforms to engage diverse stakeholders and integrate complex systems concepts. One notable outcome was an agent-based model developed in collaboration with the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office and City Council, simulating how school-aged children interact with the urban food environment. This model was presented during legislative hearings and contributed to the successful passage of the Urban Agriculture Tax Credit Bill in 2015.

Publications:

  1. Lightner A, Williamson S, Sundermeir SM, Lewis EC, Matsuzaki M, Poirier L, Thomas A, Reznar MM, Neff R, Barnett DJ, Oladimeji AT. Formative research for an innovative digital application to strengthen healthy food access and resilience in food pantries: the Support Application for Food PAntrieS (SAFPAS) study. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition. 2025 Apr 2:1-8. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19320248.2025.2482149
  2. Colón-Ramos U, Lewis EC, Tucker AC, Poirier L, Pathiravasan CH, Estradé M, Igusa T, Wolfson JA, Mui Y, Vélez-Burgess V, Thomas AE. Design of the Focus on Restaurant Engagement to Strengthen Health (FRESH) study: leveraging systems science to work with independently-owned restaurants to increase access to and promotion of healthful foods. Frontiers in public health. 2025 Jan 7;12:1427792. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1427792/full
  3. Lewis EC, Williamson S, Xie Y, Poirier L, Oladimeji AT, Igusa T, Gittelsohn J. Design of a Mobile App Interface That Engages Community Members in a Food System Pilot Study. Nutrients. 2024 May 31;16(11):1723. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/11/1723
  4. Lewis EC, Poirier-Barna L, Williamson S, Trujillo AJ, Igusa T, Gittelsohn J. Sociodemographic, Psychosocial, and Household Level Factors Associated With Fruit, Vegetable, and Fiber Consumption Among Corner Store Customers in Baltimore, Maryland. Current Developments in Nutrition. 2024 Jul 1;8. https://cdn.nutrition.org/article/S2475-2991(24)00653-X/fulltext
  5. Lewis EC, Xie Y, Sundermeir SM, Poirier L, Williamson S, Lee S, Pei X, Stephenson J, Trujillo AJ, Igusa T, Gittelsohn J. Factors and Perceptions Associated with Post-Pandemic Food Sourcing and Dietary Patterns among Urban Corner Store Customers in Baltimore, Maryland. Nutrients. 2024 Jul 10;16(14):2196. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/14/2196
  6. Barnett DJ, Sundermeir SM, Reznar MM, Lightner A, Poirier L, Rosenblum AJ, Oladimeji AT, Igusa T, Neff R, Ruggiero CF, Lewis EC. Protocol for the Support Application for Food PAntrieS trial: design, implementation, and evaluation plan for a digital application to promote healthy food access and support food pantry operations. Frontiers in Public Health. 2024 May 24;12:1340707. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1340707/full
  7. Lewis EC, Zhu S, Oladimeji AT, Igusa T, Martin NM, Poirier L, Trujillo AJ, Reznar MM, Gittelsohn J. Design of an innovative digital application to facilitate access to healthy foods in low-income urban settings. mHealth. 2023 Nov 3;10:2. https://journals.lww.com/mhealth/fulltext/2024/01000/design_of_an_innovative_digital_application_to.2.aspx
  8. Estradé M, Alarcon Basurto SG, McCarter A, Gittelsohn J, Igusa T, Zhu S, Poirier L, Gross S, Pardilla M, Rojo M, Lombard K. A Systems Approach to Identify Factors Influencing Participation in Two Tribally-Administered WIC Programs. Nutrients. 2023 Feb 28;15(5):1210. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/5/1210
  9. Huang W, Meir AY, Olapeju B, Wang G, Hong X, Venkataramani M, Cheng TL, Igusa T, Liang L, Wang X. Defining longitudinal trajectory of body mass index percentile and predicting childhood obesity: methodologies and findings in the Boston Birth Cohort. Precision Nutrition. 2023 Jun 1;2(2):e00037. https://journals.lww.com/pn/fulltext/2023/06000/Defining_longitudinal_trajectory_of_body_mass.2.aspx?context=LatestArticles
  10. Huang W, Igusa T, Wang G, Buckley JP, Hong X, Bind E, Steffens A, Mukherjee J, Haltmeier D, Ji Y, Xu R. In-utero co-exposure to toxic metals and micronutrients on childhood risk of overweight or obesity: new insight on micronutrients counteracting toxic metals. International Journal of Obesity. 2022 Aug;46(8):1435-45. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-022-01127-x
  11. Gittelsohn J, Lewis EC, Martin NM, Zhu S, Poirier L, Van Dongen EJ, Ross A, Sundermeir SM, Labrique AB, Reznar MM, Igusa T. The Baltimore Urban Food Distribution (BUD) App: Study Protocol to Assess the Feasibility of a Food Systems Intervention. International journal of environmental research and public health. 2022 Jul 26;19(15):9138. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9138
  12. Zhu S, Mitsinikos C, Poirier L, Igusa T, Gittelsohn J. Development of a System Dynamics Model to Guide Retail Food Store Policies in Baltimore City. Nutrients. 2021 Sep;13(9):3055. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/9/3055
  13. Xue H, Slivka L, Igusa T, Huang TT, Wang Y. Applications of systems modelling in obesity research. Obesity Reviews. 2018 Sep;19(9):1293-308. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/obr.12695
  14. Beheshti R, Jones-Smith J, Igusa T. Taking dietary habits into account: A computational method for modeling food choices that goes beyond price. PLoS One. 2017;12(5):1-13. PMCID: PMC5460917 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178348
  15. Beheshti, R, Igusa, T, Jones-Smith, J, Simulated models suggest that price per calorie is the dominant price metric that low-income individuals use for food decision-making”, Journal of Nutrition, 2016;146(11):2304-2311. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022316623007757
  16. Gittelsohn J, Mui Y, Adam A, Lin S, Kharmats A, Igusa T, Lee BY. Incorporating systems science principles into the development of obesity prevention interventions: principles, benefits, and challenges. Current obesity reports. 2015 Jun;4(2):174-81. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13679-015-0147-x
  17. Wang Y, Xue H, Chen HJ, Igusa T. Examining social norm impacts on obesity and eating behaviors among US school children based on agent-based model. BMC public health. 2014 Sep 6;14(1):923. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1471-2458-14-923

Faculty

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Takeru Igusa

Professor of Civil and Systems Engineering

Students

JHU Mascot Blue Jay Bird

Mehdi Jalalpour

Associate Director Brand Analytics - Eye Care, AbbVie
JHU Mascot Blue Jay Bird

Rahmat Beheshti

Associate Professor, University of Delaware

Funding Agencies

NIH U54 project