Diabetes and Me

Being diagnosed with diabetes can be rather scary, but overtime the fears will past. Having to learn to live with diabetes can be daunting initially, but once you become more educated about the condition it becomes less cumbersome. When you are first diagnosed many feel as though initially your life is over, and you will never be able to eat any more sweets, or live a normal life.  You just have to remember to enjoy the “fun” in moderation, and live a healthy lifestyle. Diabetes is not a “death sentence” it is however a serious a chronic condition that affects many Americans, especially people of color.

Diabetes Mellitus, or simply diabetes, describes a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood glucose (blood sugar), either because the body is not producing enough insulin, or is not responding to the insulin produced. Due to the complicated nature of diabetes, staying healthy can be very labor intensive.  You must check your blood sugar often, take medications, count carbs at every meal, and even measure insulin to balance what you eat and how active you are. .

More than 25.8 million people in the United States (8.3% of the population) have diabetes. Of these, 7.0 million have undiagnosed diabetes. In 2010, about 1.9 million new cases of diabetes were diagnosed in people aged 20 years or older and if current trends continue, 1 of 3 U.S. adults will have diabetes by 2050.[1]

The burden of diabetes is much greater for minority populations than the white population. For example, 10.8 percent of non-Hispanic blacks, 10.6 percent of Mexican Americans, and 9.0 percent of American Indians have diabetes, compared with 6.2 percent of whites.[2] Certain minorities also have much higher rates of diabetes-related complications and death, in some instances by as much as 50 percent more than the total population.[3]

HPC works diligently to combat the complications of diabetes among the communities we serve thru health promotion, education and intervention programs. One such program is PA cAARds! a statewide multidisciplinary training model used to educate health care professionals and para-professionals in evidence based interventions to address the dual risk of diabetes and tobacco use while linking them to valuable community-based resources. Through BE A BRIDGE and PA cAARds!, HPC has worked to address tobacco and chronic disparities through integrated evidence based strategies since 2007 training and building the capacity of more than 1,000 individuals representing more than 473 organizations in over  80% of Pennsylvania counties.

To learn more about HPC and its programs visit our website at www.hpcpa.org

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[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National diabetes fact sheet: general information and national estimates on diabetes in the United States, 2010. Atlanta,GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008.

[2] Mokdad AH, Ford ES, Bowman BA, et al. Diabetes trends in the U.S.: 1990-1998. Diabetes Care 000;23(9):1278-83.

[3] Carter JS, Pugh JA, Monterrosa A. Non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in minorities in the United States. Ann Intern Med 1996;125(3):221-32. (AHRQ Grant HS07397).

ADA. (nod). Retrieved from http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/know-your-rights/how-to-get-help/success-stories.html

(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.healingwell.com/library/diabetes/info5.asp

Justice for Youth Too, not Just Us

The problem of public leadership is calling into existence a public that can understand and act on its own interests.

                -John Dewey

There is a misconception regarding public health organizations working to combat the prevalent community health obstacles of our day. This misconception revolves around the belief that communities lack the capacity to lead and instead require a benevolent intervention to ‘put them right’. On the contrary, our communities suffer only from a lack of an ability to organize its leadership and coordinate its advocacy. This deficit of structure produces a deficit of purpose. Public health as a discipline depends most heavily on an extensive network of social support that empowers a public to purposefully understand and act on its own health interests.

The days of uninformed constituencies suffering from poor disease management, a lack of a prevention and/or promotion plan is over. Empowerment through the Health Promotion Council’s advocacy work builds community capacity to simultaneously combat health risk factors and bolster health protective factors. The diversity of services provided through this advocacy lens grants our communities the knowledge and organizations the capacity to develop relevant and appropriate prevention/promotion strategies.

In particular, HPC’s Advocacy Institute (AI) empowers stakeholders to organize, mobilize, and advocate for sustainable community change. Through work focused on the connection between public health and policy, community health, and the implementation of a strategic advocacy action plan, we prompt participants to call their communities’ capacity into existence and create healthy change. This innovative educational program prepares participants to be the change their communities need as their strategy for action grows and their leadership skills mature. Ultimately it’s this maturity that facilitates the development of sustainable community health. HPC’s advocacy work has the potential to ‘put the city right’  by empowering individuals, families, communities, institutions, and policymakers to call into existence a vision for health that respects leadership at all levels.

On a personal note, as one of the primary contributors to the development of AI, I see the program as a vehicle for capacity building for so many public health stakeholders. From youth developing leadership skills to school administrators working towards systemic reform to city policymakers making public health more accessible, these groups are more like puzzle pieces awaiting transformational leaders. AI engages stakeholders; primarily youth to this point so that they can see where they ‘fit’ in the picture. To this point, the public health picture has a piece missing and we are working to convince youth to take their rightful place.

AI has proven to be extremely enriching for those who have participated from legislative trips to community events and school seminars. My hope is for participants to find their individual and collective voices to speak up and their individual and collective feet to stand up. Ultimately, no one can push youth into their place as leaders. They’ll have to advocate on their own behalf. Good thing they have the Advocacy Institute.