Cris Meier

Biography

Cris Meier (PhD, MSW, MPH) earned her PhD in Social Work from the University of Iowa in 2018. She also completed her MSW (2011) and MPH (2014) degrees at the University of Iowa both of which have greatly influenced her practice and Extension work. Her social work practice experience includes working with children and families involved with the child welfare system and program evaluation.

As an Extension Specialist she works with rural communities to improve access to resources, assists with capacity building of residents and stakeholders, implements interventions that contribute to community development, and policy, systems, and environment changes to improve healthy food access. She supports Extension county faculty by providing program evaluation on community projects. Her expertise is in mixed-methods program evaluations.

Her research interests include neighborhood and community access to resources, spatial disparities in food environments, program evaluation, and health disparities especially among racial and ethnic minorities. More recently Cris has begun to conduct research on youth sexual behaviors in Utah, with particular interest in developing LGBTQIA+ inclusive measures, identifying resources that could help youth engage in healthy sexual behaviors, and interventions to prevent risk taking behaviors of youth.