Objectives. This study aims to describe the sociodemographic and clinical profile of working and retired staff and faculty age 55 years and older in an academic community living in Laguna, Philippines; to determine the proportion of participants with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM); and to describe the nutritional and frailty status of working and retired participants with T2DM. Methods. The study utilized a cross-sectional study design. The participants are current employees and retired faculty and staff of an academic community living in Bay and Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines. Stratified random sampling according to working status and gender was utilized. Participants with T2DM were determined and assessed based on their nutritional and frailty status using the comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA), laboratory analysis, and mini nutritional assessment (MNA). Descriptive statistics were calculated for all continuous and categorical variables measured. Results. A total of 109 participants agreed to participate and completed the CGA, with 93.6% undergone blood extraction for laboratory analysis. The mean age of the participants was 63.7 (±5.8) and 57.8% belonged to the young-old subgroup. There were more working (60.6%) than the retired (39.4%) and more females (61.5%) than males (38.5%). There was a low level of malnutrition (0.9%) in this cohort. However, many had abdominal obesity and elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL). Low vitamin D was prevalent. Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus was present among 14.7% of participants of which 93.8% were pre-frail and 6.3% were at risk for malnutrition. Conclusion. Although malnutrition and frailty were not prevalent among those with T2DM in this cohort, more participants were pre-frail and at risk for malnutrition. There are many opportunities to reduce the risk of malnutrition and frailty in the community. Early screening and interventions are recommended to improve the health and wellbeing of the working and retired participants.

Falls, common among aging persons, typically lead to catastrophic health consequences. Studies show several factors influencing an older person’s risk to falling. Depression, a psychological condition, was identified as one of these factors. With the goal of determining potential psychosocial interventions for older persons, the present study explores what other psychological variables may explain falls efficacy, i.e., perceived concern about falling. 81 older adults who were participants in an elderly development program answered a socio-demographic survey and several scales (i.e., Satisfaction with Life Scale, Flourishing Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale – Short Form, Falls Efficacy Scale – International) to measure falls efficacy and other psychological variables. Bivariate correlation revealed that falls efficacy significantly increases as family problems (r=.228, p=.045), health concerns (r=.231, p=0.040), financial difficulties (r=.345, p=.002), and depression (r=.403, p<.001) increase. Conversely, it significantly decreases as psychological well-being (r=-.255, p=.022) and perceived resilience (r=-.459, p<.001) decrease. Multiple regression analysis confirmed that while depression is a significant positive predictor, F (1,79)=15.31, p<.001, R=.403, explaining 16.2% of falls efficacy variance, anxiety-provoking situations (i.e., family problems, health worries, financial worries) also explain additional falls efficacy (6.6% variance), F (4, 71)= 5.234, p<.001, R=.477, wherein financial worry is a significant positive predictor. Furthermore, entering psychological well-being and resilience in the model adds an additional variance of 6.6%, F (6, 69)=4.533, p<.001, R=.532, but only resilience is a significant negative predictor. This paper culminates with recommendations on potential research on the psychosocial dimension of falls and possible interventions to mitigate falls among older persons.