Center & Institute Affiliations
Research Interests
dietary assessment; chronic disease; minority populations; aging; immigrants; nutritional epidemiology
Experiences & Accomplishments
I am a nutritional epidemiologist by training and the overall goal of my research program is to examine the role of diet and nutritional exposures in the health disparities experienced by underserved and high risk minority populations with respect to chronic disease. I am also interested in studying the role of dietary determinants of frailty and age-associated functional declines in the elderly. I have significant expertise in dietary assessment methodologies including the development and validation of food frequency questionnaires in diverse populations.
I collaborate with several longitudinal studies including the Jackson Heart Study, the MASALA study, the InCHIANTI study and the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. My dietary assessment projects are based in several countries and include countries in Europe, Asia and South America.
Honors & Awards
Faculty Innovation Award, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (2012)
Annual American Geriatrics Society, the National Institute on Aging, and the John A. Hartford Foundation Bedside-to-Bench Conference Travel Award (2009)
Christian Herter Fund Travel Award, Tufts University (2006)
Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy Tuition Scholarship, Tufts University (2000-2002)
J.N Tata Scholarship, J.N Tata Endowment, Mumbai, India (2000-2001)
Jamshetji Tata Gift Award, J.N Tata Endowment, Mumbai, India (2000-2001)
Select Publications
Most Recent Publications
Beydoun MA, Gamaldo A, Beydoun HA, Tanaka T, Tucker KL, Talegawkar SA, Ferrucci L, Zonderman AB. Caffeine, alcohol and overall nutrient adequacy are associated with longitudinal cognitive performance among US adults. J Nutr. 2014 (in press)
Lee SE, Talegawkar SA, Merialdi M, Caulfield L. Dietary intakes of women during pregnancy in low- and middle-income countries. Public Health Nutr. 2013 Aug;16(8):1340-53
Liu J, Hickson DA, Musani SK, Talegawkar SA, Carithers TC, Tucker KL, Fox CS, Taylor HA. Dietary Patterns, Abdominal Visceral Adipose Tissue and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in African Americans: the Jackson Heart Study. Obesity. 2013 Mar;21(3):644-51
Talegawkar SA, Bandinelli B, Bandeen-Roche K, Chen P, Milaneschi Y, Tanaka T, Semba RD, Guralnik J, Ferrucci L. A higher adherence to a mediterranean-style diet is inversely associated with the development of frailty in community-dwelling elderly men and women. J Nutr. 2012; 142(12):2161-6. PMID: 23096005
Semba RD, Chang SS, Sun K, Talegawkar SA, Ferrucci L, Fried LP. Serum carotenoids and pulmonary function in older community-dwelling women. J Nutr Health Aging. 2012 Apr;16(4):291-6