New Model For Reducing Diabetes Disparities Offers Hope to Latinos

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Latinos, with a diabetes prevalence of roughly 16.9% compared to 10.2% for non-Hispanic whites, are greatly affected by diabetes.

Fortunately, a new multicultural initiative aimed at closing the disparities gap is offering hope to members of Latino, African American, and Native American communities.

The new five-year initiative, the Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes (Alliance), has found success by using a unique multisystem approach to managing chronic disease in vulnerable populations.

In a cross-site evaluation of the initiative’s five-site community-based care centers, investigators found that patients who were a part of the Alliance experienced decreases in blood glucose levels, increased quality of life, and decreased health care costs.

Additionally, researchers discovered three types of changes that were especially important for diabetes control:

• data sharing across care providing organizations;
• linking clinic services with community assets and resources in support of individual patient self-management; and
• integrating community health workers (CHWs) into the clinical care team

Outcomes such as enhanced patient self-management of diabetes, education of health providers in cultural awareness, and delivery of health care services were all enhanced by the Alliance’s multisystem model.

“Alliance communities recognized early on that policy and systems changes were more likely to be successful and sustainable when driven by their ‘on the ground experience’ of the patients and communities served,” said Tawara Goode, Director for the National Center for Cultural Competence, in a press release. “CHWs helped provide that bridge and support the patient voice.”

For examples of policy and systems changes that are working to reduce diabetes disparities, checkout the November 2014 supplemental issue of Health Promotion Practice (HPP), which features 10 peer reviewed articles on innovative examples of community-led approaches to policy and systems change.