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Colin Orr, MD, MPH

Dr. Colin Orr, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, received a K23 Career Development Award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), a part of the United States National Institutes of Health. The purpose of the K23 program is to support the career development of individuals with a clinical doctoral degree, who have the potential to develop into productive, clinical investigators, and who have made a commitment to focus their research endeavors on patient-oriented research.

Dr. Orr’s funded project is titled “Understanding and Addressing Food Insecurity and Obesity Among Infant-Parent Dyads.” According to the , in North Carolina, about 10.9% of the population – about 1.2 million people – are experiencing food insecurity. About 394,000 of those individuals are children, with about one in six children facing hunger. NCDHHS has published a goal of decreasing the food insecurity rate from 10.9% to 10.0% by December 2024.The NCDHHS State Action Plan for Nutrition Security outlines an innovative, multi-pronged strategy for achieving that vision – including related goals outlined in the , , the , and the .

Dr. Orr has published extensively on the impacts of childhood food insecurity and obesity, including:


  • Lutz MR, Orr CJ, Shonna Yin H, Heerman WJ, Flower KB, Sanders LM, Rothman RL, Schildcrout JS, Bian A, Kay MC, Wood CT, Delamater AM, Perrin EM. Acad Pediatr. 2023 Oct 4:S1876-2859(23)00370-4. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2023.09.019. Online ahead of print. PMID: 37802249.

  • Orr CJ, Ritter V, Coker TR, Perrin EM, Flower KB. J Nutr. 2022 May 5;152(5):1291-1297. doi: 10.1093/jn/nxac020. PMID: 35084466.

  • Orr CJ, Ravanbakht S, Flower KB, Yin HS, Rothman RL, Sanders LM, Delamater A, Perrin EM. Acad Pediatr. 2020 Nov-Dec;20(8):1163-1169. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2020.05.020. Epub 2020 May 31. PMID: 32492577.

  • Orr CJ, Ben-Davies M, Ravanbakht SN, Yin HS, Sanders LM, Rothman RL, Delamater AM, Wood CT, Perrin EM. Acad Pediatr. 2019 Jan-Feb;19(1):80-89. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2018.09.007. Epub 2018 Sep 21. PMID: 30248471.