The Impact of Expanding Telehealth-Delivered Dietary Interventions on Long-Term Cardiometabolic Health.

Abstract

A healthy diet is an important protective factor to prevent cardiometabolic disease. Traditional face-to-face dietary interventions are often episodic, expensive, and may have limited effectiveness, particularly among older adults and people living in rural areas. Telehealth-delivered dietary interventions have proven to be a low-cost and effective alternative approach to improve dietary behaviors among adults with chronic health conditions. In this study, we developed a validated agent-based model of cardiometabolic health conditions to project the impact of expanding telehealth-delivered dietary interventions among older adults in the state of Georgia, a state with a large rural population. We projected the incidence of major cardiometabolic health conditions (type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol) with the implementation of telehealth-delivered dietary interventions versus no intervention among all older adults and 3 subpopulations (older adults with diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol, separately). The results showed that expanding telehealth-delivered dietary interventions could avert 22,774 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 22,091-23,457) cases of type 2 diabetes, 19,732 (19,145-20,329) cases of hypertension, and 18,219 (17,672-18,766) cases of high cholesterol for 5 years among older adults in Georgia. The intervention would have a similar effect in preventing cardiometabolic health conditions among the 3 selected subpopulations. Therefore, expanding telehealth-delivered dietary interventions could substantially reduce the burden of cardiometabolic health conditions in the long term among older adults and those with chronic health conditions.

• Authors: Yan Li, Donglan Zhang, Janani Thapa, Weixin Li, Zhuo Chen, Lan Mu, Junxiu Liu, José A Pagán
• Journal: Population health management (Popul Health Manag) Vol. 25 Issue 3 Pg. 317-322 (06 2022) ISSN: 1942-7905 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 34935506 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural)

Chemical References

• Cholesterol

Topics

• Aged
• Cholesterol
• Chronic Disease
• Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 (epidemiology, prevention & control)
• Diet, Healthy
• Humans
• Hypertension (epidemiology, prevention & control)
• Telemedicine (methods)