March Diabetes Forum Informs and Educates Health Professionals

On March 26, more than 80 physicians, nurses and other health care professionals of Monterey, San Benito & Santa Cruz Counties attended the Seventh Annual Diabetes Forum, hosted by the Regional Diabetes Collaborative (RDC), a program administered by the Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust (Health Trust).  Stakeholders at this full-day meeting convened to explore the many factors outside a doctor’s office that can affect how chronic diseases like diabetes influence individuals and communities.

“Diabetes is just one of many diseases that require more than a daily medication or occasional doctor’s visit.  For example, patients with diabetes must learn how to monitor and control their own blood sugar levels — which in turn requires monitoring symptoms and taking specific actions to correct dips or changes in blood sugar levels (such as eating a particular food).  Someone with low health literacy may have trouble understanding the symptoms of low blood sugar, as well as what to do about them.  As a result, their diabetes won’t be under control the way it could be — leading to preventable complications down the road.

Health literacy is just one of the factors that Dr. Dean Schillinger, Chief of the California Diabetes Program within the state’s Department of Public Health and a professor at UCSF, pointed to in his keynote address to the Regional Diabetes Collaborative’s annual Diabetes Forum.  In a variety of research studies, Dr. Schillinger and his colleagues have explored the many factors outside a doctor’s office that can affect how chronic diseases like diabetes affect individuals and communities.  Sometimes called “social determinants,” these additional factors include poverty or low incomes that make it difficult to consistently afford a healthy, adequate food supply, or retail environments that make fast food and convenience stores an easier (and sometimes cheaper) stop than a grocery store or farmers’ market full of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Dr. Schillinger offered some specific ways that health care professionals can address these and other social determinants of health.  For example, he described an automated telephone diabetes self-management program that has been pilot tested in San Francisco in three languages — English, Spanish and Cantonese — and has shown promising results in crossing both language and literacy barriers.

Here in Santa Cruz County, events like the Regional Diabetes Collaborative’s annual forum and coalitions like our local Go For Health! partnership are promoting community-wide changes that help everyone gain access to healthier foods and more physical activity.  As these changes become more widespread, we hope the incidence of obesity and diabetes will decrease in the future — and that meanwhile, research like Dr. Schillinger’s will help today’s patients control their diabetes, in partnership with their health care providers,” Raquel Ramírez Ruiz, Director of the Diabetes Health Center and Coodinator of the Regional Diabetes Collaborative, explained in her column to the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Pictured at right, Dean Schillinger, MD giving a presentation on “Fighting Diabetes in California” at the Seventh Annual Diabetes Forum

Our thanks to those who provided generous grants and sponsorships:

• Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula
• Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust
• Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System
• Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center of Santa Cruz/Palo Alto Medical Foundation
• The Foot Doctors of Santa Cruz County-A Podiatry Group
• Watsonville Community Hospital

The following also provided generous corporate grants:

• Lilly USA
• Novo Nordisk
• Sanofi-Aventis

About the impact of diabetes on residents of the Central Coast

The RDC is a membership organization of three dozen public and private entities from Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz Counties. This Tri-County collaborative was convened by the Health Trust in 2002 to combat the incidence of diabetes in our region, which is one of the highest in the State:  seven percent of Tri-County residents (55,000 people) now have Type 2 diabetes.  Since 1990, the number has grown by a third.  Public Health officials project a doubling before 2020.

Beyond the physical impact on patients, the cost of diabetes is staggering.  The national cost of diabetes and its complications exceeds $130 billion a year, and that’s rising at least 10% a year. For the Tri-County area it’s close to a half billion.

About the Regional Diabetes Collaborative (RDC)

The RDC is administered by the Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust that, since 2002, has united some 35 member-organizations to prevent and manage diabetes in Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey Counties. The RDC’s activities include creating partnerships with private, public, governmental and community-based organizations to prevent diabetes in the region; increasing public awareness and diabetes education; promoting best practices in clinical management; and improving the availability, accessibility, and affordability of treatment services, medicines, and equipment for diabetes patients.