Margaret R. Savoca, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Office: 336-256-0322
email: mrsavoca@uncg.edu
Education and Positions
- B.S. Douglass College, Rutgers University, 1974
- M.S., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2000
- Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2002
- Research Fellow, Medical College of Georgia, Dept. of Pediatrics, Georgia
Prevention Institute, Augusta, 2003-2004
- Adjunct Assistant Professor, Medical College of Georgia, Department of Pediatrics,
Georgia Prevention Institute.
Honors
- 2006 Fellow of the Sixth Annual Summer Institute on RCT Involving
Behavioral Interventions. Sponsored by the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research,
National Institutes of Health
- 2006-2007 HES Outstanding Advisor Award
- 2008-2009 HES Mary Francis Stone Outstanding Teaching Award
- 2009-2010 HES Outstanding Advisor Award
Research Interests
- Develop the Meal Pattern Timeline (MPT) approach as a systematic way to understand how food choices and meal patterns are influenced by the context of daily life.
- Utilize the MPT to provide dietary guidance in future interventions with high risk populations.
- Design and implement community-based interventions to reduce hypertension among young African-American men.
- Consider how aging affects oral health and eating patterns and develop new approaches to migitating these declines in dietary quality.
Current Research
- Develop and validate the Meal Pattern Timeline, an innovative dietary assessment tool for measuring and
modifying the daily food habits of individuals in clinical, health promotion, and research settings.
- Apply the Meal Pattern Timeline to the development of intervention to reduce the risk of blood pressure among young African-American men.
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Adapt the Meal Pattern Timeline to the food choices of older adults living in rural North Carolina to measure how changes in oral health influence the dietary quality of rural older adults.
Selected Publications
- Savoca, MR, Arcury TA, Leng X, Bell RA, Chen H, Anderson AM, Kohrman T, Quandt SA. The diet quality of rural older adults in the South as measured by HEI-2005 varies by ethnicity. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 2009;109:2063-2067.
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Savoca, MR, Arcury TA, Leng X, Chen H, Bell RA, Anderson AM, Kohrman T, Frazier R, Gilbert GH, Quandt SA. Severe tooth loss in older adults as a key indicator of compromised dietary quality. Public Health Nutrition. 2010; 63:182-9.
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Savoca, MR, Arcury TA, Leng X, Chen H, Bell RA, Anderson AM, Kohrman T, Gilbert GH, Quandt SA. Association Between dietary quality of rural older adults: self-reported food avoidance and food modification and oral health problems. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 2010 Jul;58(7):1225-32
- Savoca MR, Quandt, SA, et al. Views of hypertension among young African Americans who vary in their risk of developing hypertension. Ethnicity & Disease. 2009; 19: 28-34.
- Savoca MR, Evans, CD, et al. A four-day sodium-controlled diet reduces variability of overnight sodium excretion in free-living adolescents. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 2006;107:490-494.
- Savoca, MR, Mackey LM, et al. The association of ambulatory blood pressure and caffeine in adolescents. American Journal of Hypertension. 2005;18:116-120.
- Savoca MR, Evans CD, Wilson ME, Harshfield GA, Ludwig DA. The association of caffeinated beverages with blood pressure in adolescents. Arch Pediatr Adol Med. 2004;158(5):473-477.
- Savoca MR, Miller CK, and Quandt SA. Profiles of people with type 2 diabetes mellitus: the extremes of glycemic control. Soc. Sci. Med., Jun 2004;58(12):2655-2666.
- Savoca MR, Miller CK, and Ludwig DL. Food habits are related to glycemic control among people with type 2 diabetes mellitus. J. Am. Diet. Assoc. 2004;104(4):560-566.
- Savoca M, Miller C. Food selection and eating patterns: themes found among people with type 2 diabetes mellitus. J Nutr. Educ., 2001;33:224-233.
