Molly De Marco, PhD MPH is a Research Scientist at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and an Assistant Professor with the Department of Nutrition in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She conducts research on determinants of health disparities and food insecurity and focuses on community-based research that engages low-income and historically marginalized populations.

Dr. De Marco leads the Food, Fitness + Opportunity Research Collaborative at HPDP and works with HPDP’s Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Unit as key staff. For the past seven years, she has directed a program, funded through the USDA SNAP-Ed Program, to assist SNAP recipients to make healthy food choices, extend Summer Meals to more SNAP-eligible families in rural communities, engage SNAP recipients in community gardens to build access to healthy food, lead healthy food choice research in grocery and convenience stores in rural communities, build county-level food policy councils and assess how to build food and financial well-being, all with a racial equity lens. She co-developed and teaches each Spring term Nutrition 245, Sustainable, Local Food Systems – Intersection of Local Foods and Public Health, a service learning course.

Representative Courses

NUTR 245: Sustainable, Local Food Systems--Intersection of Local Foods and Public Health

Research Activities

Interests Include:

•    Health disparities
•    Food systems
•    Community-based participatory research
•    Food insecurity

Key Publications

Growing partners: building a community-academic partnership to address health disparities in rural North Carolina. De Marco M, Kearney W, Smith T, Jones C, Kearney-Powell A, Ammerman A (2014). Prog Community Health Partnersh, 8(2), 181-186.

Locally-grown fruit and vegetable purchasing habits and the association with children’s diet. De Marco M, Gustafson A, Gizlice Z, Ammerman A (2014). Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, 9(3).

Assessing the readiness of black churches to engage in health disparities research. De Marco M, Weiner B, Meade SA, Hadley M, Boyd C, Goldmon M, et al (2011). J Natl Med Assoc, 103(9-10), 960-967.

Education

PhD, Health Promotion & Health Behavior, Oregon State University Department of Public Health, 2007

MPH, Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health, 2000