Caitlin Deanne French
Assistant Project Scientist
Caitlin is a nutrition researcher specializing in dietary assessment and analysis, biomarkers, social determinants of health, and program evaluation. Her primary research interests center on informing policies and programs that aim to achieve equity in access to healthy foods and environments and to reduce diet-related chronic diseases. At NPI, she works on data analysis and dissemination in the evaluation of California’s Universal School Meals Program.
Peer reviewed
- Matias, S.L.; French, C.D.; Saavedra, J.; Shankar, A.; Rymland, A.S.; Rodriguez Beltran, I.; Collado, J.O.; Waterman, C. (2025). Acceptability of Moringa oleifera leaf powder among healthy adults in the United States. Preventive Medicine Reports. 53, 103048. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2025.103048
- Zuercher, M.D.; Orta Aleman, D.; French, C.D.; Cohen, J.F.W.; Hecht, C.A.; Hecht, K.; Chapman, L.E.; Read, M.; Ohri Vachaspati, P.; Schwartz, M.B; Patel, A.I.; Ritchie, L.D.; Gosliner, W. (2025). Factors and Outcomes Associated With Using Scratch?Cooked, Organic, and Locally Grown Foods in School Meals in California. Journal of School Health. 95:3, 235-246. January 6, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.13533
- Matias, S. L.; French, C. D. (2025). Prenatal WIC Participation Is Associated with Gestational Weight Gain: A Secondary Analysis of United States Birth Records. Current Developments in Nutrition. 9:6, 107457. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cdnut.2025.107457
French, C. D., Gomez-Lara, A., Hee, A., Shankar, A., Song, N., Campos, M., ... & Matias, S. L. (2024). Impact of a food skills course with a teaching kitchen on dietary and cooking self-efficacy and behaviors among college students. Nutrients, 16(5), 585. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/5/585
French, C. D., Arnold, C. D., Taha, A. Y., Engle-Stone, R., Schmidt, R. J., Hertz-Picciotto, I., & Slupsky, C. M. (2023). Assessing Repeated Urinary Proline Betaine Measures as a Biomarker of Usual Citrus Intake during Pregnancy: Sources of Within-Person Variation and Correlation with Reported Intake. Metabolites, 13(8): 904. https://www.mdpi.com/2218- 1989/13/8/904
French, C. D., Shafique, M. A., Bang, H., & Matias, S. L. (2023). Perinatal hospital practices are associated with breastfeeding through five months postpartum among women and infants from low-income households. Journal of Nutrition, 153(1):322-330. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36913468/
Matias, S. L., French, C. D., Gomez-Lara, A., Schenker, M. B. (2022). Chronic disease burden among Latino farmworkers in California. Frontiers in Public Health, 10:1024083. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36530711/
French, C. D., Arsenault, J.E., Arnold, C.D., Luo, H., Dodd, K.W., Vosti, S.A., ...Engle-Stone, R. (2020). Within-person variation in nutrient intakes across populations and settings: implications for the use of external estimates in modeling usual nutrient intake distributions. Advances in Nutrition, 12(2):429-451. https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmaa114 (data available at https://osf.io/wyvug/)
Engle-Stone, R., Vosti, S. A., Luo, H., Kagin, J., Tarini, A., Adams, K. P., French, C., Brown, K. H. (2019). Weighing the risks of high intakes of selected micronutrients compared with the risks of deficiencies. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Special Issue: Risk of Excessive Intake of Vitamins and Minerals. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31168822
French, C. D., Willoughby, R. E., Pan, A., Wong, S. J., Foley, J. F., Wheat, L. J., ... & Slupsky, C. M. (2018). NMR metabolomics of cerebrospinal fluid differentiates inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system. PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 12(12), e0007045. https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0007045
Non-peer reviewed
- Hecht, C.A.; Hecht, K.; Gosliner, W.; French, C.D.; Zuercher, M.D.; Orta-Aleman, D.; Ritchie, L.D. (2025). The State of School Meals for All in California. Nutrition Policy Institute, University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources. 25 February 2025. https://ucanr.edu/sites/default/files/2025-03/State%20of%20California%20School%20Meals%20for%20All%20-%202025.05.25%20V2.pdf