Malnutrition-related conditions and interventions in US state/territorial Older Americans Act aging plans

Factors that decrease independence and increase morbidity must be reduced to improve the nutrition, health, and other challenges confronting older adults. In the United States (US), the Older Americans Act (OAA) requires each state/territory develop multi-year aging plans for spending federal funds that foster healthy aging (including support of congregate/home delivered meals programs) and separately requires grant applications for nutrition service programs supporting older Native Americans. Malnutrition (particularly protein-energy undernutrition), sarcopenia, frailty, and obesity can all result in disability but are potentially changeable. The study goal was to collect baseline information on mentions of these malnutrition-related conditions and interventions that address them in US state/territorial OAA program multi-year aging plans.

OAA program multi-year aging plans available on the ADvancing States website in February 2021 (n = 52) were searched for number of mentions of defined nutrition terms including malnutrition, sarcopenia, frailty, obesity, and whether terms were included in plans' goals/objectives, strategies/actions, or solely in the narrative.

Malnutrition, sarcopenia, frailty, and obesity were mentioned infrequently in US state/territorial OAA program multi-year aging plans. 33% of plans mentioned malnutrition but only 8% as goals/objectives and 15% as strategies/actions. 62% mentioned frailty; 6% (goals/objectives), 15% (strategies/actions). None mentioned sarcopenia whereas in contrast, 21% mentioned obesity; 2% (goals/objectives), 2% (strategies/actions). Nutrition intervention mentions were nearly nil. There were no significant differences in frequency of term mentions by US region or by states with higher percentages of older adults or obese adults.

Clearly specifying definitions of malnutrition-related conditions and incorporating them into measurable goals/objectives, defined strategies/actions, and outcomes may help improve future state/territorial OAA program multi-year aging plans to better support healthy aging.