Department of Interdisciplinary Studies

Dr. Kelly Ann Renwick has an interdisciplinary background in health geography formed at the crossroads of human geography, epidemiology, and the social determinants of health. Her doctoral work focused on the influence of low social support, a weak sense of belonging, and living alone on premature mortality and hospital length of stay among aging Canadians. Dr. Renwick is a global citizen and has enjoyed traveling to many parts of the world, including her places of origin, Canada and Grenada, as well as Puerto Rico, Ireland and the British Isles, western Europe, Kenya, India, Nepal, and Thailand. Today, Dr. Renwick is active in the community and is an advocate for community-supported agriculture. She is on the board of directors for Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture, a non-profit dedicated to building an equitable and sustainable local food system in North Carolina's High Country.

Dr. Renwick is an assistant professor in IDS, primarily teaching in the Global Studies program. Her research interests include global and population health, the impacts of food insecurity on health outcomes, global health and climate change, and health inequalities among vulnerable and marginalized populations. She is currently collaborating with researchers from Meredith College to understand rates of food insecurity, the usage of food assistance programs, and diet-related poor health outcomes (e.g., obesity and diabetes) among Latino/a/x communities in the North Carolina High Country. Her overarching research objectives are to improve access to healthy food and reduce food-related health disparities.

Courses
GLS 2000 Contemporary Global Issues
GLS 3000 Critical Perspectives on Global Studies
GLS 3130 Global Disparities in Human Health
GLS 3230 Global Health and Climate Change
Special topics courses: Global Health and Development; Global Pandemics: The Ecology of Disease

Education
PhD, Geography, McGill University, Montréal, Québec
MA, Geography, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
BS, Biology, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
BA, English, High Point University, High Point, NC

Recent Publications
Renwick, Kelly Ann, Claudia Sanmartin, Kaberi Dasgupta, Lea Berrang-Ford, and Nancy Ross. 2020. "The influence of low social support and living alone on premature mortality among aging Canadians." Canadian Journal of Public Health 111: 594-605.

(In press) Renwick, Kelly Ann, Claudia Sanmartin, Kaberi Dasgupta, Lea Berrang-Ford, and Nancy Ross. 2022. "The Influence of Psychosocial Factors on Hospital Length of Stay among Aging Canadians" (DOI: 10.1177/23337214221138442/ ID: GGM-22-0108.R1). Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine.