Tele-Nutrition for Older Adults at Risk of Malnutrition: Clinical Effectiveness, Access, and Implementation

Population ageing is increasing the number of community-dwelling older adults who are malnourished or at nutritional risk, often in combination with multimorbidity, functional limitations, polypharmacy, and social vulnerability. In this population, timely nutritional screening, counselling, and follow-up can be difficult to sustain because access to dietetic services is uneven and transitions between hospital, primary care, and home may interrupt continuity of care. Tele-nutrition—the delivery of nutrition assessment, counselling, monitoring, and follow-up through synchronous or asynchronous remote communication—offers a focused way to extend qualified nutritional care beyond conventional face-to-face visits. However, uncertainty remains regarding its effectiveness, acceptability, safety, equity, implementation, and cost.This Research Topic will examine tele-nutrition for community-dwelling adults aged 65 years and older who are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. The scope is deliberately limited to human nutrition interventions in which a qualified nutrition professional delivers or supervises remote care. It aims to connect evidence from clinical nutrition, primary care, community services, and transitional care, with particular attention to underserved groups, caregivers, digital literacy, and barriers to access, focusing on clinically meaningful outcomes and the conditions required for equitable and sustainable implementation.By bringing these strands together, the collection seeks to clarify where tele-nutrition adds value, for whom, and under which service conditions.We welcome original research, clinical trials, observational and mixed-methods studies, implementation studies, economic evaluations, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and policy or practice reviews.Topics of Interest• Clinical effectiveness, safety, and patient-reported outcomes of tele-nutrition on nutritional status, dietary intake, function, quality of life, healthcare use, and related outcomes• Validity and feasibility of remote nutritional screening, assessment, counselling, goal-setting, monitoring, and follow-up• Synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid models of remote dietetic care• Continuity of nutritional care after hospital discharge and across primary, community, and home-care services• Patient engagement, adherence, caregiver involvement, acceptability, and person-centred communication• Implementation outcomes, workforce models, service integration, reimbursement, and cost-effectiveness• Equity, digital access, health literacy, cultural adaptation, privacy, governance, safety, and ethical considerationsOut of scope: Manuscripts centered on AI or machine-learning methods, population-level nutritional epidemiology, stand-alone wearable technologies, or generic digital health without a defined tele-nutrition intervention. Topic editors: Fabio Petrelli, GABRIELE Caggianelli, Giovanni Cangelosi, Valentina Vanzi Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85987/tele-nutrition-for-older-adults-at-risk-of-malnutrition-clinical-effectiveness-access-and-implementation