Description
To draw interventions, we must know the specificities of the target audience in their environment. However, the healthcare professionals do not have access to the individual and context information (environmental, social, economic and cultural) of the elderly allowing them to diagnose the problems and to define the intervention strategies. This project underpins educational programs for the health professionals allowing them to know the community where they are practicing.. We hold information that categorizes the population in the populations in need (based on socio-economic and environmental characteristics) to which we will associate nutritional status data (anthropometry, malnutrition indexes). The joint use of these indicators will allow us to identify nutritional inequalities of the elderly in order to design a “tailored” education program. PRONUTRISENIOR is a holistic approach in which the elderly population is considered as part of the environment and intends to better assist the health professionals (and others working in the community) to monitor their nutritional status and thus reduce the levels of malnutrition in this population group. Therefore the education and empowerment of these professionals will be preceded by an assessment of the community and its environment. The main objectives of this project are as follows: a) To empower health professionals (and others working in the community) for the nutritional surveillance to the elderly population suffering from different levels of deficiency; b) To develop “tailored” training programs, to be delivered in presence, by distance learning or on-line, to health professionals and other professionals working in geriatrics. The specific objectives of the project are organized in three groups: I) the population living in its environment; II) the professionals’ empowerment; and the elderly empowerment.
Summary of project results
Nutrition is an important determinant of health in older people. In this project, geographic information system was developed and feed with data regarding cartography (namely biogeophysical support, road network, demographic and socio-economic information) and information on the elderly, food and meal providers, support structure, and care provider sites. This system was used to identify and georeferenced elderly at nutritional risk, and to develop social, economic and environmental vulnerability maps based on the previous variables. Besides the characterization of the environment/context where the elderly live, and its association with the nutritional status, this project also aimed to characterize the nutritional status of the participants, and to develop training programs and educational materials to health care professionals, caregivers and for older people. This project showed that 1.1% of the sample assessed (n=459) was undernourished, and 25.9% were at risk of undernutrition, also determined variables that are predictors of undernutrition or its risk, namely low social support and lower eating-related quality of life. The determination of these predictors is particular important, as it may help to tailor interventions to reduce the prevalence of undernutrition, and to minimize its consequences. In this case, the data showed that interventions aiming to reduce the prevalence of undernutrition among non-institutionalized elderly should focus particularly on those with worse social support. Regarding the outputs, this project has addressed several training sessions to health care professionals, caregivers/meal suppliers (n=20 sessions) and to institutionalized elderly (n=74 sessions). Pronutrisenior had also developed 22 short videos regarding nutrition issues in the elderly. Two master’s degree thesis arose from this project. And right now four students are developing 2 master’s degree thesis and 2 PhD thesis using data from this project.
Summary of bilateral results
The two international partners accompanied the entire project, providing important inputs during the definition of the methodology and data analysis. The international partners also participated in the Pronutrisenior Congress, that took place on October 2016.