Lamis Jomaa

About

Lamis Jomaa is a community nutritionist and food security scholar at the Department of Nutrition with more than 14 years of teaching and research experience in the US and the Middle East. Dr. Jomaa’s teaching, research and community service are focused on addressing food and nutrition security among underrepresented groups and designing evidence-base community nutrition interventions that aim at reducing health disparities and inequities while improving overall nutrition and health outcomes.

As an adjunct associate professor at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon and a former associate professor at the Department of Nutrition Sciences at the North Carolina Central University (NCCU), Dr. Jomaa contributed to the design of interdisciplinary graduate programs and taught a wide array of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including food and nutrition security, public health nutrition, nutrition education, community nutrition, and research methods in the field of food and nutrition. Dr. Jomaa formerly served as the co-director of the Refugee Health Program within the Global Health Institute at AUB and was engaged in high-profile university-wide initiatives and campaigns addressing global and refugee health needs in the Middle East. Her work continues to focus on leveraging the voices of the vulnerable communities and exploring food security and refugee health-related issues in the US and globally.

Teaching Interests

NUTR 470 -Foundations of Nutrition Interventions
NUTR 770 -Clinical Trials in Nutrition
NUTR 992 - Nutrition MPH Integrative Learning Experience

Research Activities

Dr. Jomaa's main research interests include the interlinkages between food security, child and adolescent nutrition, refugee health, and sustainable diets. She uses mixed methods research approaches to evaluate the burden and determinants of food and nutrition insecurity experienced by vulnerable groups including women, children, refugees, displaced individuals, and underrepresented communities in the US and globally. In addition, her research work is focused on evaluating the effectiveness of community-based interventions aimed at improving nutrition and health outcomes and reducing health disparities.

Another focus area of Dr. Jomaa's research has been exploring the intersection between conflict, displacement, and nutrition. Refugees and displaced population groups are at high risk of poverty, discrimination, poor health outcomes; and the protracted and multiple crises facing low to middle-income countries in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region placed refugees at particular risk of malnutrition and adverse health consequences. Dr. Jomaa uses mixed methods approach to examine food security status and perceptions and experiences of refugees towards existing food assistance modalities and programs, including community kitchens and cash transfer modalities. She worked with academic researchers and international agencies in Lebanon, Europe and the US on documenting the suboptimal infant and young child feeding practices and the increased of risk of anemia and other nutritional deficiencies among refugee caregivers and children under five in Lebanon.

Childhood and adolescent nutrition represent a key theme that Dr. Jomaa have been working on throughout her academic and research career. During her early research years, she explored the role of school nutrition programs and policies in the prevention of childhood obesity in the US and later examined the impact of school feeding programs on nutrition, health, and educational outcomes of school-aged children in low-to-middle-income countries. In the Middle East, she further characterized the dietary intake and food consumption behaviors of school-aged children, adolescents, and young adults and worked in parallel with other colleagues to document the impact of the nutrition transition on adherence to the Mediterranean diet amongst various life stages and population groups.

Dr. Jomaa’s recent work in the US has been focused on evaluating the role of campus and community food pantries in alleviating food and nutrition security and improving dietary quality among youth and young adults. In parallel, she continues to work on exploring novel and innovative methods to promote sustainable, healthy, and affordable diets and examining environmental footprints associated with dietary changes observed among different population groups.

Dr. Jomaa’s research portfolio reflects strong publication records and success in attracting intramural and extramural grants to support her research endeavors and strives to build strong and sustainable partnerships with multi-disciplinary teams in academic institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and humanitarian agencies in the US and globally.

Community Nutrition; Food Security; Nutrition Education; Refugee Health; Child and Adolescent Nutrition; Sustainable and healthy diets; Mixed methods studies

Service Activities

Dr. Jomaa is a member of several professional organizations including the American Society of Nutrition; Fulbright Association; World Economic Forum Young Scientists; and the Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship Program at the National Academies of Sciences.

Dr. Jomaa is a research fellow at the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at UNC.

Practice Activities

- Advisory Board Member, Eagles Nutrition Clinic and Community Outreach, Astrazeneca funded clinic at the North Carolina Central University

-Awards Committee Member and Executive Commtitee Member in the Nutrition Education and Behavioral Sciences Research Interest Group; ASN (2021- present)

- Chair of oral presentations organized by the Nutrition Education Behavioral Sciences Research Interest Group at the American Society of Nutrition (ASN) (2023; 2024).
-Invited speaker at more than 40 international and local health and nutrition conferences, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (Rome, Italy 2016); key note speaker at the 2019 Education Conference held at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Uppsala, Sweden; invited presenter at the Annual Head Start Conference (Durham 2023); Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center workshop on ‘Political Economy Workshop: the MENA Region in the Eye of the Storm (Lebanon 2023); etc.

-Invited guest lectures at multiple institutions in the US, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, including Trinity University in Ireland;; American University of Beirut; University of Nairobi (Kenya); Penn State University; UCSF; UC Berkeley, UNC Nutrition Obesity Research Center Enrichment Program (NORC); Yale University, etc.

Key Publications

Safeguarding the SDG promise to end hunger and leave no one behind: the plight of children in the Gaza Strip. Nasreddine, L and Jomaa, L. (2024). The Lancet Global Health, 12(11), e1748 - e1749.
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Promoting infant and young child feeding in Lebanon: Lessons learned from programming. Jomaa, L, Price, K., Hare-Grogg, C., Klomp, A., Palmquist, A.  (2024). Field Exchange, 72.
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Gender-based differentials in food insecurity and wellbeing in Arab countries. Diab-El-Harake, M., Kharroubi, S., Zabaneh, M., Jomaa L*.  (2022). Global Food Security.
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Sustainable, Healthy and Affordable Diets for Children in Lebanon: A Call for Action in Dire Times. Jomaa, L.*, Nasreddine, L., Naja, F., Chehade, L., Hwalla, N.  (2021). Sustainability, 13(23), 13245.
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Voices of the vulnerable: Exploring the livelihood strategies, coping mechanisms and their impact on food insecurity, health and access to health care among Syrian refugees in the Beqaa region of Lebanon. Nabulsi, D., Ismail, H., Abou Hassan, F., Sacca, L., Honein-AbouHaidar, G., & Jomaa, L*.  (2020). PLOS One, 15(12), e0242421.
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Caregiver’s self-confidence in food resource management is associated with lower risk of household food insecurity among SNAP-Ed Eligible head start families. Jomaa L.*, Na M, Eagleton S.G., Diab-El-Harake M, Savage J.S. (2020). Nutrients, 12(8), E2304.
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Education