Social aspects of nutrition: an investigation of meals-on-wheels and community meals provision and use in Ireland

The meals-on-wheels service is central to the promotion of community and domiciliary care for older persons, and has considerable potential to impact positively on the service recipients' health, social interaction and general well-being. The lack of a comprehensive study of the MOW service in Ireland is a major gap in our knowledge of the older population.

This study (November 2006 - January 2008) was conducted in three phases:
1) a national mapping exercise of all meals-on-wheels services;
2) semi-structured interviews with co-ordinators and volunteers from 13 meals-on-wheels services;
3) a nutritional assessment (MNA) 70 meals-on-wheels recipients, along with a semi-structured interview about the meaning of food in their lives.

This project was funded by the NCAOP (National Council on Ageing and Older People). The PI was Virpi Timonen who worked with SPARC Research Fellow Ciara O'Dwyer. The results were published in Novemeber 2008 by the NCAOP in the report ''The Role and Future Development of the Meals-on-Wheels Service for Older People in Ireland' (report no. 104). This report was launched by the NCAOP at a conference in Athlone on 6 November 2008. The research also resulted in journal articles published in Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations in 2009, Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics (2009) and Canadian Journal on Aging (2010)