Data crunching diabetes: 8,000 zip codes identified for early intervention

Medcitynews.com | Stephanie Baum | 5.17.12

To identify people with diabetes who underutilize healthcare, you don’t need real-time video hookups or smartphone apps. You just need a lot of data to find the people and a big physical infrastructure to deliver the care.

That’s the approach theNational Association of Area Agencies on Aging is proposing to cut the costs of diabetes care. The group has teamed up with the National Minority Quality Forum to identify and track people in the early stages of diabetes, and particularly focus on people who underconsume healthcare. The idea is to help diabetics before their disease gets to the point where it’s difficult and expensive to manage.

N4A presented its Diabetes Care Center proposal at the Sanofi Data Design Diabetes Innovation Challenge this week in New York. Part of the competition is public voting. Check out the four other competitors and vote for the best idea here. Read more

New Reference Offers Texas Health-Related Data by County, Zip Code

From the distribution of pharmacies, trauma centers and emergency rooms to the number of lung, colon and breast cancer patients in major metropolitan areas, “Texas Health Atlas,” published by Texas A&M University Press, provides a geographic perspective on the state’s healthcare system.

College Station, TX (PRWEB) May 16, 2012.

With almost 200 pages of original demographic and health-related maps displaying county-by-county and regional information, Texas Health Atlas provides an important tool for providers and planners, risk managers, public officials and policymakers.

Authors Lawrence Estaville, Kristine Egan and Abel Galaviz have mined an array of previously scattered information to create a singular resource, providing a geographical perspective on the state’s health care system, medical services, insidious diseases, harmful behaviors and health disparities among various segments of its population. Read more

Management of Hyperglycemia in Type 2 Diabetes: A Patient-Centered Approach

Position Statement of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD)

Care.diabetesjournals.org: April 19, 2012.

Glycemic management in type 2 diabetes mellitus has become increasingly complex and, to some extent, controversial, with a widening array of pharmacological agents now available (1–5), mounting concerns about their potential adverse effects and new uncertainties regarding the benefits of intensive glycemic control on macrovascular complications (6–9). Many clinicians are therefore perplexed as to the optimal strategies for their patients. As a consequence, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) convened a joint task force to examine the evidence and develop recommendations for antihyperglycemic therapy in nonpregnant adults with type 2 diabetes. Several guideline documents have been developed by members of these two organizations (10) and by other societies and federations (2,11–15). Read more

Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Prevalence of Gestational Diabetes by BMI

Using Smartphones to Manage Diabetes for Underserved Minorities

• Diabetes, minority health, Mobile Applications

Afrocentric Cultural Values and Beliefs: Movement Beyond the Race and Ethnicity Proxy to Understand Views of Diabetes

tde.sagepub.com: May 18, 2012.
The purpose of this study was to estimate the benefit of using a cultural characteristics scale to help diabetes educators understand how African Americans cope with diabetes. Illness representations are influenced by culture. Race and ethnicity as a proxy for culture provides an incomplete understanding of the mechanism by which cultural values influence representations of diabetes.

Methods

A descriptive correlational design was employed by recruiting hospitalized adults with type 2 diabetes at 3 metropolitan northeast coast sites. The TRIOS Afrocentric cultural characteristics measure and the Illness Perception Questionnaire were administered by paper-and-pencil to a diverse sample. Black race and African American ethnicity was used as a proxy for culture and compared to levels of agreement on an Afrocentric cultural scale to determine the relative ability to explain variance in illness representations of diabetes. Read more

A Gene-Family Analysis of 61 Genetic Variants in the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Genes for Insulin Resistance and Type 2 Diabetes in American Indians

Diabetes.diabetesjournals.org: May 14, 2012.
Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Genetic variants in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) genes have been associated with smoking phenotypes and are likely to influence diabetes. Although each single variant may have only a minor effect, the joint contribution of multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to the occurrence of disease may be larger. In this study, we conducted a gene-family analysis to investigate the joint impact of 61 tag SNPs in 7 nAChRs genes on insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in 3,665 American Indians recruited by the Strong Heart Family Study. Results show that although multiple SNPs showed marginal individual association with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, only a few can pass adjustment for multiple testing. However, a gene-family analysis considering the joint impact of all 61 SNPs reveals significant association of the nAChR gene family with both insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes (both P < 0.0001), suggesting that genetic variants in the nAChR genes jointly contribute to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes among American Indians. The effects of these genetic variants on insulin resistance and diabetes are independent of cigarette smoking per se. Read more