Sharon Kirkpatrick

Dr. Sharon Kirkpatrick is a nutritionist and Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. Dr. Kirkpatrick’s current research focuses mainly on advancing methodologies for assessing diet and dealing with measurement error in dietary intake data. Diet is inherently complex given that it is a chronic, dynamic and multifaceted phenomenon. Work to improve methods of assessing diet is needed to enable a better understanding of the diets of populations, relationships between diet and health, and the impact of interventions on diet. Dr. Kirkpatrick also has longstanding interests in food access among marginalized populations, with a particular focus on research aimed at informing policy and program interventions to reduce food insecurity. Work in this area focuses on a broad range of potential factors that might influence food security, including social policy, housing, and neighbourhood characteristics. A current focus in this area is the potential application of systems thinking and systems approaches to better understand the potential effects of interventions to address food insecurity. In addition, Dr. Kirkpatrick has interests in food policy, dietary guidance, the sustainability of current and recommended diets, and food environments.