Tell us about yourself in a paragraph or two: What is your name, and what are you studying? Where are you from? What was your dream job as a kid? What's your favourite thing to do outside of school/work?

My name is Christine (Chris) Mills and I am a registered dietitian and PhD candidate in Aging & Health at Queen’s University. I have a Master of Public Health in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Toronto, and two undergraduate degrees in Biological Engineering and Applied Human Nutrition from the University of Guelph.

I was born in Selkirk, spent my early years in Winnipeg, did high school in Ottawa, and then my undergraduate studies in Guelph. As a proud Canadian military spouse, I have lived in numerous places. Currently, I reside in Ingolstadt, Germany, as my spouse is posted to a NATO military Centre of Excellence.

As a child I wanted to become a veterinarian; after working one summer at a vet practice, I realized it wasn’t for me.

Outside of work and school, I enjoy running, strength training and spending time with my spouse and our four Sphynx cats. I also enjoy crochet and knitting.

What interested you about the CLSA?

As a dietitian working in primary care, I saw some of the gaps in our evidence base for providing nutrition care to older adults. The CLSA will help me to fill some of those gaps. It is such an incredible resource. There are so many research questions that can be answered with the dataset. For my dissertation research, I really had to narrow my focus by using a theoretical framework to choose which aspects I would examine. The longitudinal nature of the study means that we will be able to examine changes over time, which is so important. In the future, I hope to continue pursuing my research questions as more and more follow-up data becomes available.

What type of research are you doing with CLSA data? Have you published? If so, what are the findings (in lay terms)?

My primary research questions examine nutrition risk in community-dwelling adults aged 45 and older. I am interested in the social, demographic, and health outcome variables that are associated with nutrition risk or that can predict nutrition risk. I currently have one paper under review at the Journals of Gerontology Series B that looked at social network type and nutrition risk. We found that social network type was associated with nutrition risk at both baseline and first follow-up. I have a second paper about to be submitted that examines predictors of nutrition risk scores at baseline and at first follow-up, using the SCREEN-8 tool from Dr. Heather Keller. I look forward to publishing those results. I have a third paper I am still writing that looks at the predictors of changes in nutrition risk between baseline and first follow-up.

I was fortunate to participate in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Summer Program in Aging (SPA 2021) when the focus of the program was on longitudinal studies on aging. During the program, I was a member of a team that received funding for their project. Now that we have received approval from the CLSA, we will be going ahead with the project and will be examining unpaid caregivers and caregiving.

What is the most interesting or surprising thing you've learned from your work with the CLSA? How do you think the CLSA will help you grow as a student or in your future?

The sheer volume of data available through the CLSA. As a dietitian, I always wish there was more nutrition data (such as food frequency questionnaires or 24-hour recalls), but the nutrition data available is excellent. Working with the CLSA data has allowed me to improve my data analysis skills. I have become proficient in using R, as I found it much easier to use than other analysis programs through my work with CLSA data. I hope to continue analyzing CLSA data related to nutrition risk as additional follow-up data are released.

How do you think the findings using CLSA data will be useful to you, or others, in the future?

To my knowledge, there is only one Canadian study that involved a longitudinal study of nutrition risk, and that study looked at only two time points. Using CLSA data, we will be able to look at multiple time points and fully understand the predictors of nutrition risk. Since nutrition risk is associated with increased frailty, poor quality of life, hospitalization, institutionalization, and death, if we can get a better understanding of the causes of nutrition risk, we can improve the lives of Canadian adults. That’s exciting!

Do you have any idea about what kind of job you'd like to do when you finish school?

I plan to complete a post-doctoral fellowship after I have completed my doctoral studies. After a postdoc, I would like to become a tenure-track professor at a comprehensive or undergraduate-focused university.

What is a non-career related thing that you are grateful for because of your work with the CLSA?

I am grateful for the relationships I made with my fellow SPA 2021 trainees and with our mentor. Also, as I am analyzing CLSA data for my doctoral dissertation, I was able to move to Germany with my spouse instead of having to be on site at Queen’s University to complete my research. While we haven’t had the opportunities to travel that we had hoped for due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has nevertheless been a wonderful experience living in Germany.