A longtime Muscatine resident and health and wellness advocate has been hired to coordinate Muscatine County activities related to an Iowa State University grant awarded to the county by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this year.
Nora Dwyer is the new program assistant for LEAP (Leveraging Actions and Partnerships to Address Obesity). The program, which begins in 2023, is in the first year of a five-year renewable grant from the CDC’s High Obesity Program (HOP). HOP provides funding to colleges and universities working with local cooperative extension services in primarily rural counties where more than 40% of adults are obese.
According to local county data, 43% of Muscatine County adults suffer from obesity. Iowa State University implements CDC’s HOP program in Muscatine County along with five other counties (Franklin, Cedar, Clinton, West Pottawattamie and Crawford). HOP funding enables Muscatine County Extension to address health disparities related to poor nutrition, physical inactivity and obesity.
The HOP program implements proven public health strategies including:
• Food and Nutrition Security – Promoting food service and nutrition guidelines and expanding fruit and vegetable voucher incentives and produce prescription programs.
• Safe and accessible physical activity – connecting transport networks to everyday destinations.
To date, a county coalition has been formed with representatives from various organizations, county and city departments and businesses with interests in these areas.
Dwyer will be responsible for multiple aspects of the Iowa LEAP project: she will work with local community members to build coalition capacity and sustainability, coordinate networking meetings for county stakeholders, implement and lead county coalition meetings, assist with county evaluation activities led by state and program experts, and support project planning, implementation, evaluation, and reporting to the state LEAP team.
Dwyer has been involved in numerous health and wellness efforts throughout her career, most recently managing the Muscatine Social Action Center food pantry in 2020, serving as a licensed massage therapist and physical therapist assistant, and also has an interest in food, nutrition and food insecurity.
On working on this project, she said, “I am excited to see how this program overlaps with my previous experiences and look forward to being a bridge between our community coalition and all the resources Iowa State University has to offer to support this effort to improve the health of our county’s residents.”
For additional information about the project, please contact Dwyer or Heidi Hoffman at the Muscatine County Extension Office at 563-263-5701. For more information on how to get involved in this important program, please email: nmdwyer@iastate.edu or hoffmanh@iastate.edu.
