Niyati Parekh

Faculty

Niyati Parekh's additional information

Prof. Niyati Parekh’s research and teaching are motivated by a deep commitment to reduce nutrition-related disease outcomes in at-risk groups. In pursuit of this goal, as a nutritional epidemiologist, she has developed a robust research portfolio that examines the intersection of biological and behavioral factors of non-communicable diseases in US populations.  The overarching theme of her research program is to examine the role of nutrition and diet-related factors in the etiology of non-communicable diseases, with a particular focus on obesity, metabolic dysregulation and cancer. Her multidisciplinary research integrates the intricacies from four distinct areas of expertise: disease biology, nutritional biochemistry, epidemiology and biostatistics. She has developed a research program with three interconnected areas that are unified under the theme of investigating diet and non-communicable diseases in populations, using epidemiologic methods. The first arm consists of leveraging existing data to identify dietary patterns, dietary quality and food consumption patterns in populations of interest. The second is to identify dietary determinants and biomarkers that predict disease outcomes including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. The third arm is to measure diets using novel dietary assessment methods that will contribute to more accurate and multi-dimensional measurement of diet. The three areas of her work complement each other and reveal preventive measures for populations, inform health policy and guide clinical practice. She has 75 peer-reviewed publications and her work has been supported by awards from the American Cancer Society and NIH.

Prof. Parekh holds an MS in Clinical Nutrition from Mumbai University and a PhD in Nutritional Sciences with a minor in Population Health Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2005). After completing a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship in Cancer Epidemiology at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey-Rutgers, she joined New York University Steinhardt’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health in January 2008. With doctoral and postdoctoral training in epidemiological methods, she cross-pollinated the fields of nutrition and public health. In 2015, as Associate Professor of Public Health Nutrition, she transitioned to NYU’s newly launched School of Global Public Health (GPH), as Director of the Public Health Nutrition program (until 2019). She also has an affiliated appointment at the Department of Population Health-Grossman School of Medicine.

Her recent honors include being inducted as a New York Academy of Medicine Fellow, and her appointment as Independent Consultant at UNICEF. She has served the American Society for Nutrition as Chair of the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Group. She teaches graduate courses in the New York Campus and at study abroad sites (Mexico, Abu Dhabi and Florence). Graduate courses taught include Global Nutrition, Nutritional Epidemiology, Perspectives in Public Health and Global Cancer Epidemiology for which she has received awards. Prof. Parekh served as the Executive Director of Doctoral Programs at GPH from 2017-2021. In this role, she supported PhD students school-wide, and promoted all aspects of their rigorous research and professional development towards impactful careers. Prof. Parekh was appointed as the Associate Vice Provost of Faculty Initiatives in August 2021 and is responsible for mentoring early career tenure track-faculty.

PhD, Nutritional Sciences (minor Population Health Sciences), University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
MS, Foods, Nutrition, and Clinical Dietetics, Mumbai University, India
BS, Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Mumbai University, India

Faculty Honors Awards

Publications

Association between behavioural risk factors for hypertension and concordance with the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension dietary pattern among South Asians in the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) study

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Concordance Between DASH Diet and Coronary Artery Calcification: Results From the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Prospective Cohort Study

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A Multi-Stage Dyadic Qualitative Analysis to Disentangle How Dietary Behaviors of Asian American Young Adults are Influenced by Family

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Dietary patterns in the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) study: comparisons across methodologies

Beasley, J. M., Hussain, B. M., Gadgil, M. D., Talegawkar, S. A., Parekh, N., Bhupathiraju, S. N., Islam, N. S., & Kanaya, A. M. (2024). BMJ Nutrition, Prevention and Health, 7(2), 409-414. 10.1136/bmjnph-2023-000853

Personal and Social-Built Environmental Factors of Glucose Variability Among Multiethnic Groups of Adults With Type 2 Diabetes: Research Protocol Using Ecological Momentary Assessment, Continuous Glucose Monitoring, and Actigraphy

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Ultra-processed food intake among South Asians in the United States: Specific vulnerabilities of a growing immigrant population group

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‘We know what he likes, even if he doesn’t know’: how the children of South Asian immigrants characterize and influence the diets of their parents

Auer, S., Penikalapati, R., Parekh, N., Merdjanoff, A. A., DiClemente, R. J., & Ali, S. H. (2024). Health Education Research, 39(2), 131-142. 10.1093/her/cyad036
Abstract
Abstract
Foreign-born (first-generation) South Asians face a growing diet-related chronic disease burden. Little is known about whether the adult US-born (second-generation) children of South Asian immigrants can provide unique insights as changemakers in their parents’ dietary behaviors. This study aims to assess how second-generation South Asians describe and influence the dietary behaviors of their parents. Between October and November 2020, 32 second-generation South Asians [mean age 22.4 (SD 2.9), 53% female] participated in online interviews centered around factors involved in their (and their parents) eating behaviors. Thematic analysis revealed three types of parental dietary drivers (socioecological factors that impact the dietary choices of parents): goal-oriented (i.e., parents’ dietary intentionality), capacity-related (e.g., environmental barriers) and sociocultural (cultural familiarity, religion and traditions). Participants described three major mechanisms of influence: recommending new foods, cooking for parents, and bringing new foods home. These influences primarily occurred in the household and often involved participants leveraging their own nutritional knowledge and preferences to expand dietary diversity and healthier behaviors among their parents. Evidence suggests that second-generation South Asians may act as powerful agents of dietary change within their households and can provide novel insights to help address and overcome sociocultural, linguistic, and other structural barriers to better understanding and intervening in the health of the South Asian community.

Concordance between Dash Diet and Hypertension: Results from the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study

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Development of a Food List to Assess the Diet of South Asians Living in the U.S.: Preliminary Results From a Formative Study

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Dietary Self-Management Using Mobile Health Technology for Adults With Type 2 Diabetes: A Scoping Review

Zheng, Y., Campbell Rice, B., Melkus, G. D., Sun, M., Zweig, S., Jia, W., Parekh, N., He, H., Zhang, Y. L., & Wylie-Rosett, J. (2023). Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, 17(5), 1212-1225. 10.1177/19322968231174038
Abstract
Abstract
Objective: Dietary self-management is one key component to achieve optimal glycemic control. Advances in mobile health (mHealth) technology have reduced the burden of diabetes self-management; however, limited evidence has been known regarding the status of the current body of research using mHealth technology for dietary management for adults with type 2 diabetes. Methods: Literature searches were conducted electronically using PubMed, CINAHL (EBSCO), Web of Science Core Collection, PsycINFO (Ovid), EMBASE (Ovid), and Scopus. Keywords and subject headings covered dietary management, type 2 diabetes, and mHealth. Inclusion criteria included studies that applied mHealth for dietary self-management for adults with type 2 diabetes and were published in English as full articles. Results: This review (N = 15 studies) revealed heterogeneity of the mHealth-based dietary self-management or interventions and reported results related to physiological, dietary behavioral, and psychosocial outcomes. Twelve studies applied smartphone apps with varied functions for dietary management or intervention, while three studies applied continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) to guide dietary changes. Among 15 reviewed studies, only three of them were two-arm randomized clinical trial (RCT) with larger sample and 12-month study duration and 12 of them were pilot testing. Nine of 12 pilot studies showed improved HbA1c; most of them resulted in varied dietary changes; and few of them showed improved diabetes distress and depression. Conclusion: Our review provided evidence that the application of mHealth technology for dietary intervention for adults with type 2 diabetes is still in pilot testing. The preliminary effects are inconclusive on physiological, dietary behavioral, and psychosocial outcomes.