Contextual Poverty, Nutrition, and Chronic Kidney Disease

Nutrition plays an important role in CKD outcomes. One of the strongest factors that affects nutrition is socioeconomic status as evidenced by the large body of epidemiologic data showing that income and education are directly associated with diet quality. Apart from individual-level markers of socioeconomic status such as income and education, contextual factors such as availability of and transportation to food outlets that provide healthy food options and the density of fast-food restaurants within particular regions markedly affect the ability of individuals to comply with nutrition recommendations. This is particularly true for nutrition guidelines most specific to individuals with CKD such as the consumption of protein, saturated fat, sodium, and phosphorus, all of which have been shown to affect CKD health and are influenced by the availability of healthy food options within individual neighborhood food environments. Because of the strong association of contextual poverty with the diet quality, any serious attempt to improve the diet of CKD patients must include a discussion of the environmental barriers that each individual faces in trying to access healthy foods, and health care providers should take account of these barriers when tailoring specific recommendations.