Hello! My name is Fran Miller, and I am in my 6th semester of the online MPH in Nutrition program at UMass Amherst. I chose a fully online program because it allows me to continue working full time while earning my degree. I work as a community nutritionist at a Pacific Northwest Indian Tribe.

For my practicum, I am beginning a community nutrition and physical activity assessment, using the Moving to the Future toolkit (movingtothefuture.org).  In the first month of the practicum, I have worked through many of the worksheets in the assessment section of the toolkit, collecting information that is held by various people in different departments of the tribe as well as looking at previously gathered BRFSS data. Our goal is to create a comprehensive assessment that will provide data needed for successful grant completion, as well as to engage the community in planning the types of interventions that they would like to see to improve nutrition and physical activity opportunities.

The next step will be to compile a list of potential key informants and to design interview questions. By the end of my practicum, I hope to be able to interview 5-10 key informants about strengths and needs of the community in these areas. My project work next year will build from this initial data collection.