Profiling Rural Southern Congregate Nutrition Site Participants

Abstract

A high degree of risk of malnutrition exists among low-income older adults, especially those attending congregate nutrition sites. Recognizing this, nutrition education programming is offered on a regular basis; however, levels of malnutrition risk persist at a high rate. The current study focuses on the diversity of this audience and the premise that nutrition education appropriately targeted more specifically to this audience would bring about behavior change and affect risk of malnutrition. Therefore, the current study identified the risk factors for and level of risk of malnutrition in a southern rural congregate nutrition site participant population and determined that subsets of this population are at greater risk of malnutrition than the whole. Socio-demographic characteristics were found to vary with behavioral risk factors for malnutrition. This study should be of particular interest to educators who wish to develop effective nutrition education programming by targeting older adults more specifically. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1