Opportunities for Adding Undernutrition and Frailty Screening Measures in US National Surveys

Both undernutrition and frailty adversely affect the health and functional outcomes of the older adult population. Timely and accurate national data are necessary to assess those at risk of these debilitating but often preventable conditions, to correct them and support healthy aging. The objective was to identify relevant measures in undernutrition and frailty screening tools and determine if these measures are collected in recent protocols for US national surveys sampling older adults and which measures could be added to be able to better assess risk of undernutrition and frailty. Commonly used undernutrition and frailty screening tools were evaluated to identify measures that were unique or common to both. US national surveys were examined to determine whether they included older adults in their survey sample, collected health measures from participants, in what form, and whether they were functional indexes or survey questions. A comparative analysis of survey protocols was performed to determine which surveys collected data related to the measures of undernutrition and frailty. Of the 8 national surveys, only 3 provided ≥1 physical measurement (i.e., height/weight, grip strength, balance). Most surveys included self-reported data on height/weight, physical functioning/mobility, disability, and psychological components. Whereas 6 included questions on food security/food program participation, only 1 collected data on dietary intake. Currently national surveys include only limited health measures that can be used to identify undernutrition and frailty risk in older adults. Adding a few simple screening measures already included in popular screening tools, such as grip strength, unintentional weight loss, and loss of appetite, to national surveys which monitor older Americans would facilitate estimation of the prevalence of undernutrition and frailty risk, better estimate those at risk, provide an opportunity to set national goals to reduce their risk, and help implement strategies for improved health outcomes.