Professional development plan

Inadequate nutrition severely impacts negatively the public health of 15% (5.26 million) older adults 65 years and older. For 7 of 12 months food insecure (FI) older adults lack access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Older adults with FI are more likely to live a lower quality of life, be removed from home and familiar surroundings, hospitalized, immobilized, and die. Conditions resulting from FI include GI malabsorption, impairment in food consumption, emotional and social disorders, pain, and suffering. At risk older adults are sometimes forced to resort to severe coping strategies e.g., emergency food sources, scavenging, and stealing. Older adults living independently, experiencing low income, and self-report as people of color are at greater risk for FI. In particular, 22% of African American older adults were food insecure in 2000. It is necessary to increase understanding about predictors of FI for independent-living, urban, low income, African Americans. Research has identified the South and Southwest U.S. as vulnerable areas, but studies are very limited in investigating other geographical areas in the U.S. The goal is to add to nursing and public health body of knowledge about FI.\ud This professional development plan will use expertise and interdisciplinary resources in gerontological and public health care investigating FI among independent-living older African American adults. The John A. Hartford Foundation’s Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity (JAHF BAGNC) Predoctoral Scholarship Program would support 24 months of proposal development, data management and analysis, manuscript preparation for thesis/dissertation, and completion of coursework as foundation for both the conceptual and methodological components of the thesis/dissertation. The thesis/dissertation will be a secondary analysis of FI among African American older adults based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Current Population Survey Food Security Survey. The plan goal includes a prevalence study of FI and its relationship to nutritional biomarkers in African Americans 70 years and older. This work will lay a foundation to develop and test a future community-based intervention to address FI and promote the nutritional status of the older adult African American population.\u