Use of nutrition literacy scale in elderly minority population

The major objective of our paper was to test and validate the nutritional literacy scale (NLS) in a pre-dominantly African-American geriatric population.

Completion of the 2 literacy scales Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (STOHFLA) and nutritional literacy scale (NLS) during a 5-month period from September 2008 to January 2009.

The Rosa Parks Geriatric Center at Detroit Medical Center/Wayne State University.

The study cohort consisted of elderly (>65 years old) 150 patients that had presented to the geriatric clinic.

NLS and STOHFLA were simultaneously given to the patients. The NLS consists of 28 questions regarding organic foods; calorie intake etc. and questions in each section were arranged from easier to more difficult ones. The baseline characteristics were stratified according to the NLS (< 25 and ≥ 25) and STOHFLA (< 35 and ≥ 35) scores. Additionally we also collected data on demographic information, educational experience, blood pressure recordings from 3 consecutive clinic visits.

The patients with a higher NLS score were younger (72 ± 9) as compared to those with lower NLS score (76 ± 9) (p = 0.005), and also had more years of education (16 ± 3 years v/s 13 ± 3 years; p <0.001). A higher proportion of patients with lower score on NLS had hypertension (95.10 % for NLS < 25 v/s 77.08 % for NLS > 25; p =0.001).

We validated a potentially useful nutritional literacy tool that might prove to be useful intervention aimed at identifying individuals with lower levels of education and insight regarding their nutritional behaviors.