Courtney Byrd
Research Interests

My research interests focus on the promotion of healthy eating and active living among children and their families especially in early childcare settings. My current projects include ENRICH (Encouraging Nurturing Responsiveness to Improve Child Health) and Lunch is in the Bag. ENRICH works to help parents establish healthy eating, activity, bedtime, and screen time routines. Lunch is in the Bag encourages parents to increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in sack lunches for their preschool children in childcare centers. The goal for this research is the development of new strategies for the promotion of healthy eating practices in children through childcare centers. Other research interests include mother-friendly worksites. Texas Mother Friendly Worksite Program supports nursing mothers in the workplace. We are currently targeting promotion and outreach activities to reach new worksites across employment sectors and statewidegeographic regions. We are currently assisting Department of State Health Services (DSHS) with the evaluation and dissemination of project and program successes through the analysis, synthesis and reporting of quantitative and qualitative data collected.