CONTACT:Chris NorwoodHealth PeopleDirect 718-585-1064 Cell at Rally 917-353-7437[email protected] orCynthia Carway/Stephanie HornbackCarway Communications, Inc.212-378-2020 (office)[email protected]@carwaycomms
AT MIDTOWN MANHATTAN RALLY, NY COMMUNITY HEALTH LEADERS LAUNCH “DIABETES IS DONE” INITIATIVE ON WORLD DIABETES DAY Nov. 14Health Leaders Call on NY State to Declare Diabetes a Public Health Emergencyand Make Diabetes Prevention & Self-Care Education a Health Priority
Diabetes Now Consumes $21.6 Billion a Year in NY Health Care Spending
Newswise — NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 -- New York community health leaders, led by Health People of the South Bronx, the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, the Commission on the Public’s Health System, the Harlem Independent Living Center, the Bronx Health Link and the Caribbean Women’s Health Association, today gathered at a rally in midtown Manhattan on World Diabetes Day to call on Governor Andrew Cuomo and leaders in Albany to finally confront the state’s overwhelming type 2 diabetes epidemic by declaring the disease a public health emergency and committing to fund effective prevention and self-care education in hard hit communities in the state.
The groups launched the “Diabetes is Done” (DiD) initiative outside the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) NYC headquarters, 333 Seventh Avenue. DiD is a groundbreaking evidence-based agenda for effective education to slash New York’s future diabetes cases through collaborative public and private efforts.
All five NYC boroughs (Bronx, Kings, Staten Island, New York and Queens) are included in the top 10 New York State counties with the highest rates of diabetes hospitalizations. Two million New Yorkers have already developed type 2 diabetes and the state has estimated 5,400,000 New Yorkers are pre-diabetic. Without targeted education, at least one-third of these pre-diabetics will develop outright diabetes within three years. Despite this, New York State currently does not allocate any of its budget funds for the Centers of Disease Control (CDC)-recognized National Diabetes Prevention program (DPP).Today, leaders called for that to change and outlined the new DiD agenda including:
1. For New York State to declare a diabetes emergency and properly invest in the DPP, a multi-session prevention course endorsed by the CDC, the American Medical Association and many other medical societies which is proven to slash by 60 percent the risk of pre-diabetics actually developing the disease.
2. For the American Diabetes Association’s New York office to support the call for diabetes to be declared a Public Health Emergency and for the National ADA, which says it endorses the DPP, to finally put some of its estimated $161 million annual budget, into this life-saving education program and bring it to those most in need of it.
3. For the state to reduce New York’s staggering rate of unnecessary diabetes complications, including blindness, kidney failure and lower-limb amputation, by assuring that all newly-diagnosed diabetics have access to well-evaluated self-care education.
“The DPP is the best proven diabetes prevention education program we have,” Chris Norwood, Founder and Executive Director of Health People which has implemented the DPP on a limited scale in the South Bronx. “It teaches participants strategies for incorporating physical activity into daily life and eating healthfully. Lifestyle coaches work with participants to identify emotions and situations that can sabotage their success and the group process encourages participants to share strategies for dealing with challenging situations.”
According to Dr. Hal Strelnick, Assistant Dean for Community Engagement at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, “The Diabetes Prevention Program was tested right here in the Bronx and proven to be more effective than medication in protecting those at risk for diabetes.Such powerful prevention should be available to every New Yorker at risk.”
The cost of diabetes, itself, versus prevention is also staggering. Diabetes already consumes $21.6 billion a year in New York’s overall health care dollars but savings from the DPP, which encourages pre-diabetics to lose five percent of their body weight and start exercising 150 minutes a week, are almost immediate. A recent federal demonstration, which enrolled 5,600 pre-diabetics in the DPP, saved an average health of $2,650 in health costs per participant over 15 months.
“Diabetes can be prevented at a low cost, safely, consistently, and durably, using community-based programs established over more than 12 years by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This simple reality has been demonstrated in the scientific literature and in our neighborhoods. No one is doomed to an amputation, kidney failure, or blindness from Type 2 Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes can even be rolled back, as many of my patients have done using the standard group programs,” stated Robert W. Morrow, M.D., a community health physician and Associate Clinical Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
“It’s as incomprehensible—as it is unacceptable---that New York State has never stepped forward to widely and properly implement the National Diabetes Prevention Program,” Norwood added.
New York State, through its public health law, has significant powers to declare health emergencies and/or order counties to undertake public health initiatives, as well as reimburse costs for these initiatives. For example, just this year the Department of Health ordered all public school districts to undertake lead testing of their drinking water and do remediation when necessary. It also said it would reimburse local public health departments through the state General Public Health Work program for overseeing compliance; and also ordered all local health departments to have a Zika virus action plan which included public education, with “enhanced education” in jurisdictions where Zika carrying mosquitoes have been found. The state can also ask for federal approval to include the DPP in Medicaid services, which it has never done.
About Health PeopleHealth People is a groundbreaking peer education, prevention and support organization in the South Bronx whose mission is to train and empower residents of communities overwhelmed by chronic disease and AIDS to become leaders and educators in effectively preventing ill health, hospitalization and unnecessary death.
Established in 1990 as a women’s AIDS prevention and support program, Health People has grown, using its peer-education model, to provide a full range of HIV/AIDS services for men, women and families. It also has conducted community asthma programs, New York’s first diabetes peer-educators program, and a community smoking cessation program. Health People’s Junior Peer program, Kids-Helping-Kids includes teens who are mentors for younger children with sick or missing parents.
For more information, please visit www.healthpeople.org.
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