Dietary Choices for People and Planet

1. Executive Summary: Kiera Dixon co-wrote a research review manuscript that was published in the journal Nutrients that investigated the human and planetary health effects of six common U.S. diets. The project began as a collaboration with Airly Foods, a climate-friendly snack company, under the IOES Corporate Partners Program. With her previous research experience and knowledge, Kiera Dixon provided guidance and leadership to help conduct data curation, analysis, and writing for the manuscript. Results indicated that diets that exhibit lower carbon footprints also have positive effects on human health, including vegan, Mediterranean and “climatarian” diets. The manuscript hopes to provide the public with guidance for making simple substitutions within one’s diet as an effective approach to collectively lower the environmental impact in tandem with improving human health.
2. Importance: It is important for people to be informed on how everyday choices such as food can impact both human health on an individual level and planetary health on a collective level, as they can then be more well equipped to choose diets that can positively impact themselves and the world around them. I chose this effort to also gain experience in applying my research experience to effectively collaborate with a business.
3. Impact and Reach: The article has been viewed 7333 times all around the world as of May 2023, has been cited in 2 papers as of April 2023, and was featured in a UCLA news post. Airly found the research helpful for their future business directions, and thousands of people have become better informed on how sustainability intersects with food consumption and human health.
4. Collaborators: I collaborated with a UCLA Professor and Researcher, Dr. Catherine Carpenter, and an undergraduate student, Malia Michelsen, who were my co-authors. We all collaborated with Airly, a climate-friendly snack company, who provided the impetus for the research project but played no role in the remaining research process.
5. Your Role Well Defined: I worked as a student co-researcher for the project in which I managed the literature review, data acquisition, data analysis, and written report. As a graduate student, I provided leadership, guidance and experience on performing literature reviews, data analysis, and writing to my co-researcher.
6. Optional Next Steps: I do not wish to continue the effort, as the collaboration with Airly has ended and my co-authors have decided to move forward with other projects.