Kumar Chandran , MS-Nutrition/MPH '06

By Emily Taylor, MPH Candidate

When Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy and School of Medicine graduate Kumar Chandran, M.S., M.P.H. (2006) left the university two years ago, he headed to California to begin a job with California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA) in Oakland.  Putting his dual nutrition and public health degrees to use, Kumar has spent the last two years advocating for changes in State policies with the main goal of improving nutrition programs for low-income Californians. 

The non-profit CFPA aims to specifically increase the participation in and quality of food stamp programs, public school meals and snacks, and childcare nutrition.  They do this by conducting research and making policy recommendations to the State and Federal governments.  Kumar says that by analyzing publicly available data, CFPA is able to look at trends in participation in the various nutrition programs in the State and then assess how well low-income individuals have access to these programs.  They also partner with academic institutions, such as the Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley, to do more involved work with surveys and observational data.  Kumar says that CFPA’s two most recent research studies used both of these methods to collect information on the nutrition quality of meals served in child care settings: one study used observational visits in LA County and the other used mailed surveys across the State of California.

CFPA is able to provide policy recommendations based on the conclusions of their research. Generally, Kumar says, the CFPA works with a member of the State legislature to introduce a bill that they have written.  Once it is introduced, they seek out support from other advocacy groups and legislators and work with opposition groups to find common ground and amend the bill if needed.   Oftentimes CFPA testifies in support of legislation or seeks out experts in the field to do so.  Although most of the nutrition policy work that CFPA does require attention over a period of years, and change is generally incremental, Kumar is exceedingly optimistic that the public is aware now, more than ever, of the importance of addressing the nutrition-based challenges that lie ahead—especially surrounding obesity and healthy eating habits.

Prior to becoming a graduate student at Tufts, Kumar was interested in the intersection of public policy and nutrition—specifically from a public health perspective.  Receiving a nutrition degree in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition and a public health degree in Health Policy enabled him to explore and further these interests.  He credits the education he received at Tufts with teaching him how to be a public health professional—specifically, how to analyze problems and think about issues at several ecological levels.  Kumar’s current work requires him to not only consider the many interacting and complex reasons why low-income communities in California suffer from poor access to healthy food, but also to devise creative policy solutions to address them.