Clemson gets $300,000 grant for rising rural problem of malnourished elderly

Published: September 17, 2009

CLEMSON — A research team led by Clemson University nutritionists received a federal grant to help the malnourished elderly. A national issue, the problem also touches many lives in South Carolina, especially in poor, rural areas.

Angela Fraser, an associate professor and food safety specialist in the Clemson food science and human nutrition department, is leading the research team from Clemson and the Medical University of South Carolina. The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded the project $300,000 and scored it No.1 among 37 applications.

“This study will have a broad impact, laying the groundwork for a statewide and possible regional and national evidence-based nutrition and food safety program that can be delivered to older adults,” said Fraser. “The elderly are a group often at risk for nutritional compromise due to chronic illness, social inequality, social and psychological factors and poor dietary practices. This project also has the potential to impact health disparities and could have a positive economic impact by decreasing health care.”

The research tests the effect of a new nutrition and food safety education instruction for adults age 60 and older. The information is culturally and regionally tailored and will be delivered to older adults attending 12 randomly selected group meal sites across the state. The project focuses on poorer, rural, older adults, especially members of minority groups.

The study has two objectives: First, it is to determine if a series of eight one-hour nutrition and food safety education sessions that focus on healthful and safe food choices, simple and healthful food-preparation practices, and safe food handling can be adapted and delivered across South Carolina to older adults attending group meal sites. Second, it is to determine the effect of exposure to the curriculum on the participant’s health, as measured by weight and blood-pressure change and change in an established measure of health-related quality of life and nutrition.

Grant evaluators gave the study high marks for its evidence-based approach.

Experts estimate that the number of older adults living in their own communities who are malnourished is in the hundreds of thousands, with some estimating that more than one million homebound elderly might be malnourished. In South Carolina, results from a survey of more than 5,000 older adults classified 54 percent of respondents as being at-risk for malnutrition.

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