Iris Mercado, EdD CDN
Associate Professor,
Health Education Unit
Education Department
Hostos Community College
475 Grand Concourse, Room A-107
Bronx, NY 10451
Phone: 718-518-4169
Fax: 718-518-4242
Email: imercado@hostos.cuny.edu
The work experience has included teaching and counseling, as well as, management. As a clinician, Dr. Mercado have provided direct nutrition assessments, education and counseling on various chronic disease conditions. Also, for many years she had been providing nutrition and health education trainings to various programs. One of the Prof. Mercado contributions to the college included the health and wellness initiatives that led to the creation of the Hostos Health and Wellness office. While a member of the CUNY-wide Campaign Against Diabetes, she organized many health and wellness activities with faculty, staff and students at Hostos College such as organized walking groups where pedometers were distributed and the 10,000 Steps Program was implemented. She also initiated and continuously advised the 1st Student Health Club that organized health promotion activities every semester and implemented a “Healthy Weight” support group for students and staff for ten consecutive semesters.
Prof. Mercado scholarship includes articles published in peer-reviewed journals as well as local, national, and international conference presentations. Her early publications were related to weight management practices used by Latinas in the U.S. (Mercado, I. (2008) Healthy and Unhealthy Weight Loss Practices of Latino Women at a College in the USA. Terapia Psicológica, and Mercado, I. (2007) Healthy and Unhealthy Weight Loss Practices of Latino Women in U.S. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics), which led her to a book manuscript on weight management, targeting the Latino population in the United States. The book project research led her to the creation of a healthy eating guideline, “The Latino Way Food Guide” and “The Latino Plate”. This food guide and plate images was created taking into consideration the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015 and the different food preferences, cultural definitions of food and dietary patterns of the diverse and fast growing group of Latinos in the United States. As a result of this work she published several articles (Mercado, I. (2014) The Latino Way Food Groups and the Latino Plate-Food Guidelines for Latinos in the U.S. Journal of Health Psychology, and Mercado, I. (2014) The Latino Way Food Group and the Latino Plate. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics).
Prof. Mercado have been the recipient of several recognition awards like the: Excellence in Health Education Award, presented by The Puerto Rican Day Parade Organization, Community Service Award, presented by Ruben Diaz Jr. Borough President of the Bronx, and Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition, presented by Congressman Jose Serrano. I was awarded the Teaching Excellence Award, Education Department, Hostos Community College for two consecutive years.