Contact Us
Barry Popkin, IDOC Director
The IDOC is spearheaded by Barry M. Popkin, Professor of Nutrition (PhD in Economics, Cornell University, 1974). Dr. Popkin conducts global research on the nutrition transition, trends in dietary intake, physical activity, and body composition. He is an economist and large population nutrition epidemiology scholar specializing in the study of the determinants and consequences of nutritional, health, and demographic behaviors and their interrelationships. Dr. Popkin has a special interest in the way environmental factors — interacting with demographic, social, and economic factors — affect dietary, physical activity, and body composition (a main focus on obesity) patterns and trends. Dr. Popkin has an active US research program, including a series of longitudinal studies on environmental and economic factors affecting adolescent and young adult dietary, physical activity, and obesity patterns. Included is a focus on understanding some of the causes of economic and race-ethnic disparities. His international research on the nutrition transition includes a series of comparative and longitudinal studies of obesity, dietary, and physical activity patterns and their causes. This global research includes detailed longitudinal studies that he directs in China and Russia, active involvement with longitudinal studies in the Philippines, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Brazil, and related work in a number of other countries. Dr. Popkin initiated and directed the China Health and Nutrition Survey, a longitudinal study of 19,000 (with nationwide surveys in 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2011), the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring survey (with 14 nationally representative surveys from 1992 to 2008), and the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey. He is the author of over 275 refereed journal articles and has a book The World Is Fat (Penguin, Dec 2008).
Contact Information:
Email: popkin@unc.edu
Phone: 919-966-1732
Fax: 919-966-9159
Dr. Barry Popkin, Director
Interdisciplinary Obesity Center (IDOC)
Carolina Population Center
123 W. Franklin St.
CB # 8120
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Debbie Bush, IDOC Deputy Director
IDOC Deputy Director, Deborah Bush, M.S., oversees the day-to-day administration and operation of the Center. She is responsible for implementing IDOC programs and the Global Obesity Business Forum, assisting in the development of all aspects of the grant, establishing and maintaining a central communications infrastructure, and ensuring that the long range mission of interdisciplinary obesity research and collaboration on the Carolina campus and beyond is instituted seamlessly. Prior to her role with IDOC, Ms. Bush was a Research Instructor in the School of Nursing at UNC-CH. In this role she managed a 5-year multi-site NIH research grant. Previous work included managerial positions at James River Corporation, Colgate Palmolive Company, and The Dannon Company. With a master’s degree in education and more than 25 years of combined corporate and academic experience, Ms. Bush sees this position as the perfect opportunity to blend her two former career paths into one at the Interdisciplinary Obesity Center.
Contact Information:
Email: dbush@email.unc.edu
Phone: 919-966-2685
Fax: 919-966-9159
Resume of Deborah Bush
Deborah Bush, Deputy Director
Interdisciplinary Obesity Center (IDOC)
Carolina Population Center
123 W. Franklin St. (CB #8120)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
