• Two Marquette professors will be presenting their research at a pediatric health conference held by the Children's Research Institute
• The conference aims to bring together various interdisciplinary research team from Southeastern Wisconsin
• Marquette graduate students are encouraged to attend the conference as an excellent networking opportunity
• The conference is an opportunity for those within the behavioral health sciences to learn various methods for interdisciplinary research

Two Marquette professors will be among 19 speakers at a pediatric health conference being held by the Children's Research Institute in an effort to promote research sharing in the field.

On Feb. 22, Astrida Kaugars, assistant professor of psychology, and Marilyn Frenn, associate professor of nursing, will present their research at a conference entitled Pediatric Behavioral Health Research: Building Networks for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. The conference is aimed at providing several of southeastern Wisconsin's most prominent behavioral health scientists the opportunity to share their research with others in the field.

According to Shelly Malin, the associate director at the Children's Research Institute and director of advanced practice and research, the conference is designed to bring together a number of people from the behavioral health sciences who have integrated multiple disciplines of study into their research.

Malin said the conference aims to bring members from the various fields of medicine, psychology, nursing, social work and counseling together to share methods for interdisciplinary research and to create networking relationships with other members of the scientific community.

"At the end of the conference we want people to be able to understand strategies for research and effectively translate them into practice," Malin said. "The intent of the conference is to look at what it is that makes these teams successful and to look at how you benefit from having all these different ways of thinking in the room."

Malin said both Frenn and Kaugars were invited to present at the conference because they have harnessed data into their projects from several disciplines of study.

Frenn, who will be presenting "Partnering to Promote Healthy Eating and Exercise," said her research focuses on promoting healthy lifestyle choices for children to prevent obesity and potential health complications that accompany it. She and her collaborators have developed several projects to motivate children in 4th through 8th grades to increase physical activity and healthier eating.

"We have an obesity epidemic going on," Freen said. "The rate of obesity is increasing in kids today and kids who are heavy are at a higher risk of being obese as adults."

Frenn also said it will be an interesting as well as beneficial to hear about the research of others working in behavioral health sciences.

"I think it's a really good idea," Frenn said. "You learn so much more from interdisciplinary research because you have experts in each aspect of the problem."

Kaugars said her presentation, "Quality of Life in Families of Children with Constipation," focuses on an issue both families and children find difficult to talk about, even though it is common. Kaugars said she has worked with experts in gastroenterology, nursing and psychology to asses the problem of constipation in children. She said she believes her research benefited from combining the expertise of each of these disciplines.

"We really have rich and thought provoking discussions, and the data we end up gathering really takes into account all the different perspectives," Kaugars said. "Instead of asking one question, we might ask four different questions because each of us sees a different angle."