About Us

Center for Health and Nutrition Education, Counseling and Empowerment (CHeNECE) (BEH) Research Group is an interdisciplinary consortium of researchers who study how to improve the wellbeing of people in various stage of life through health and nutrition education, counseling and empowerment. CHeNECE uses both primary quantitative and qualitative data to induce behavioral change within people and society to improve their health and nutrition status. This objective could be achieved through understanding the determinants, creating, assisting, and maintaining the change in behavioral, personal and environmental level. The CHeNECE Group was founded by Trias Mahmudiono at Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia. Our faculty team is now at Faculty of Public Health Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya and Program Study Diluar Kampus Utama (PSDKU), Banyuwangi, with research staff based at the Faculty of Public Health Universitas Airlangga Surabaya. The group includes faculty from the fields of public health, public health nutrition, nutrition, dietetics, biostatistics, environmental health, health policy, health promotion and behavioral science. Among our group member, we have published 13 articles in a Scopus indexed journal among which 7 of them were first authored by our members. Our work has informed the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia on the importance of first 1000 days of life and ways to prevent stunting through nutrition education intervention targeting female high school children at one of the targeted districts in East Java Province, Lamongan. Our notable work extends to combat double burden of malnutrition through the NEO-MOM project which target overweight/obese mother and stunted children in urban city of Surabaya. With the rise of social media and high usage of hand phone, our study also touches upon the importance of short message service (SMS) and condom emoji as tools to inform users about the importance of health and nutrition. We serve on the DRPM Scientific Review Panels, frequently speak at national and international conferences, and advise NGOs, hospitals, businesses, industry groups, and city, district and government agencies. We have developed and validated measures and methods for conducting health and nutrition education, counseling and empowerment research.

The CHeNECE Research Group uses several behavioral change theories in our research such as the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) in our NEO-MOM Project, and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) for our nutrition education intervention targeting elementary school children to improve their fish consumption. Our current study to improve adherence on iron supplement intake

among female high schooler was also based on TPB in conjunction with delivery method of EMO- DEMO, an interactive approach in nutrition education developed by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). In term of counseling and empowerment, our previous work in NEO- MOM project was involving community leader and health worker to conduct home visit in households with double burden of malnutrition. Prior to the visit, we trained the health workers with one of effective counseling method, the motivational interviewing technique.

With the rapid spread of cell and text-based communications, we also conducted research related to the use of SMS and condom emoji. We believed that innovations in mobile technology and the development of mobile lifestyles have created new models of social, economic and health care interaction. The opportunities for using Health and Nutrition Informatics as a tool for education, counseling and empowerment to study and intervene on population health are just beginning to be explored.

Over the past few years the we have developed research projects that utilize health and nutrition education, counseling and empowerment to studying behavioral change, built environments and population health, including projects to