Buys wins multistate research excellence award
David Buys
David Buys, associate professor in Mississippi State University’s Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion and state health specialist with the MSU Extension Service, has been honored by a USDA multistate group for his research in helping aging adults live better, longer lives.
Buys is a member of NE:1939, a multistate research group focused on improving the health span of aging adults through diet and physical activity. NE:1939, which is part of the USDA, recognized Buys for excellence in research. He’ll accept the award during the group’s annual meeting in June 2021, where he will also give the keynote address.
Through assessment and the development and refinement of interventions, the group seeks to preserve and improve the health of aging adults in both rural and urban environments.
For the last several years, Buys’ research has intersected with this emphasis area. His efforts in the last two years alone have culminated in 13 publications, 19 community presentations, and the mentorship of 15 undergraduate and graduate students on NE:1939-related projects.
“I’m honored to have been nominated and receive this award, in particular, because aging-related work has been a focus of my research career since 2008. That my peers across the country would recognize my contributions to the gerontology field is deeply meaningful,” Buys said.
In addition to his work with NE:1939, Buys is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. He serves on MSU’s Gerontology Education Committee, having mentored undergraduate and graduate students on aging-related topics and serving as preceptor for more than 45 dietetic interns as part of their training which includes aging and community-based nutrition services.
In past research, he’s been a champion of food security for older Americans, including his work co-editing a 2015 special issue of the Journal of Nutrition in Gerontology and Geriatrics that focused on home-and community-based meal services for older Americans, which included an article widely used as evidence to stop the reduction or elimination of funding for home delivered meals services by the federal government in 2017. He also published a 2018 article in Family and Community Health, documenting differences in social and demographic predictors of nutritional risk among community-dwelling older adults and a 2020 article titled “Lessons learned: recruiting aging adults” in Topics in Clinical Nutrition.
NE:1939 is supported by State Agricultural Experiment Stations from the Hatch Multistate Research Fund provided by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture of the United States Department of Agriculture.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.
Vanessa Beeson | Agriculture and Natural Resources Marketing
