Association of Frailty and Malnutrition With Long-term Functional and Mortality Outcomes Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Key Points Question How are physical frailty and malnutrition singly and in combination associated with adverse health outcomes? Findings In this cohort study of 2804 community-dwelling adults in Singapore, poor nutrition alone without physical frailty was not significantly associated with increased prevalence or incidence of functional disability, poor quality of life, or mortality, while poor nutrition with prefrailty/frailty was consistently associated with substantially increased prevalence and incidence of poor functional and mortality outcomes. Meaning Reported adverse health outcomes attributed to poor nutrition often appear more likely to be associated with physical frailty; therefore, prefrail/frail older persons with poor nutrition might be targeted for interventions to prevent or delay adverse health outcomes.