Food Insecurity and Vision Impairment Among Adults Age 50 and Older in the United States
Section snippets
STUDY DESIGN AND SAMPLE
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is a nationally representative series of cross-sectional interviews, surveys, and physical examinations conducted in the United States.27,28 The NHANES was designed to assess the health and nutrition status of the US civilian population using a stratified multistage probability design with oversampling of certain subgroups, which has been described in detail.29,30 Use of NHANES sample weights yields data generalizable to the US
RESULTS
Of the 12,781 adults 50 years and older in the NHANES 1999-2008, there were 2126 excluded due to lack of vision data, and an additional 577 were excluded due to lack of food security data, resulting in 10,078 participants included in this analysis. The individuals included in this analysis were statistically significantly older (66 vs 63 years; P < .0001), less likely to engage in regular physical activity (35% vs 45%; P < .0001), less likely to have more than a high school education (66% vs
DISCUSSION
In this nationally representative sample of US adults age 50 years and older, we found compelling evidence to suggest that dietary adequacy as measured by food security is associated with visual health. In this study, those with food insecurity had higher odds of prevalent VI, assessed by both objective measurement and self-report. Compared with those with full food security, those with very low food security had 170% higher odds of PVI and 85% higher odds of SRVI. Furthermore, as severity of
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Cited by (7)
Association between Food Insecurity and Vision Impairment among Older Adults: A Pooled Analysis of Data from Six Low- and Middle-Income Countries
2023, Journal of Nutrition, Health and AgingSelf-Reported Vision Impairment and Food Insecurity in the US: National Health Interview Survey, 2011–2018
2023, Ophthalmic Epidemiology
Accepted for publication Oct 6, 2021.