Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Aging
Date Submitted: Oct 27, 2020
Date Accepted: May 31, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jun 3, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Educating Minority, Older Adults in Plant-Based Diet During the Pandemic: Opportunities Using Digital Health and Telehealth Technologies
ABSTRACT
Background:
United States (U.S.) ambulatory visits drastically fell during the COVID-19 pandemic, threatening an individual’s health promotion and chronic illness management. Considering the disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases affecting older minority populations, plant-based diet may be an intervention improve health. Plant-based diets reduce Body Mass Index (BMI) and inflammation and boost the immune system with antioxidants. Promoting plant-based diet eating patterns with the use of telehealth and digital technology can be powerful instruments which may contribute to weight loss and help keep older, minority adults stay connected to during times of physical isolation.
Objective:
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are staying home; therefore, encouraging healthy diet is critical to promote wellness. Dietary modification is an accessible, measurable, and translatable health behavior. Identifying achievable self-management behaviors that promote and maintain plant-based diet has been shown to decrease adiposity, body mass index (BMI), and hemoglobin A1C values in certain minority groups and older adults.1,2 This promising diet needs to be further explored utilizing telehealth and digital technologies, which may reduce COVID-19 related health disparities and promote community connections.
Methods:
None
Results:
None
Conclusions:
The pandemic has rapidly shifted the healthcare delivery system to utilize more telehealth and digital health technologies. Interdisciplinary teams must consider using technology to implement a solid plant-based diet program to combat the obesity epidemic and associated conditions plaguing ethnically diverse individuals, families, and communities. The family and community network are critically important to help improve health outcomes for populations at risk for the COVID-19 virus. As plant-based diets are integrated into the plan of care, telehealth education and community outreach programs could significantly benefit future generations and improve health disparities.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.