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Diabetes Resource Library

The League is working with the Massachusetts Department of Health, local partners, and community health centers in the state to assist health centers in preventing and managing diabetes. The resources on this page include presentations, resource documents (such as reports, fact sheets, and websites), and tools.

New!! Diabetes Toolkit

The Diabetes Champions Toolkit is a portfolio of resources intended for Community Health Center staff committed to improving outcomes for patients with diabetes. These resources specifically focus on interventions that a health center can readily implement into practice. Based on the National Association of Community Health Center's (NACHC) framework, the toolkit structures interventions into four categories: Patient Activation and Behavior Change, Reducing Health Inequities, Optimizing Teams, and Health Systems and Infrastructure.

Changes that Drive Improvement

  • Diabetes Driver Diagram - This tool, often used in learning collaboratives, assists health centers in identifying research-based drivers of positive change in patient outcomes. The tool suggests changes that health centers can test in PDSAs in order to support patients and providers in diabetes management.

Diabetes Care Guidelines

  • Guidelines for Care - The National Institutes of Health has collaborated with more than a dozen professional organizations and federal agencies to publish "Guiding Principles for the Care of People With or at Risk for Diabetes", which aims to identify and synthesize areas of general agreement among existing guidelines to help guide primary care providers and health care teams to deliver quality care to adults with or at risk for diabetes.
  • Dental Guidelines - The American Dental Association has information on diabetes and dental health, which show how patients with diabetes are at greater risk of developing some oral health problems. The Healthy People 2020 Spotlight on Health: Diabetes presentation provides an overview of the Healthy People 2020 goals and how they can be used to drive health interventions.
  • Diabetic Retinopathy Guidelines - The American Diabetes updated their position statement outlining guidelines on prevention, assessment, and treatment of diabetic retinopathy. The position statement outlines the stages of diabetic retinopathy and highlights recommendations on optimal blood glycemic control and lowering blood pressure.

Diabetes Trends

  • US Diabetes Statistics - The CDC publishes an updated report on statistics about diabetes in the United States, including information on prevalence and incidence, prediabetes, risk factors for complication, and costs. The 2017 report is now available.
  • State & County Statistics - The CDC publishes national, state, and county data and trends on diabetes, as well as a diabetes state burden toolkit.
  • Webinar on Long-Term Trends - The CDC presentation on long-term trends in diabetes highlights the trend in diagnosed diabetes in the United States from 1958 through 2015.

Disparities in Diabetes

  • Health Equity Resources - The National CLAS Standards, sponsored by the Office of Minority Health, are intended to advance health equity, improve quality, and help eliminate disparities. They offer a guide to assist providers, administrators, and executives communicate in a way that considers the health literacy and cultural needs of patients. This is important for organizations considering racial/ethnic disparities, as the rates of diabetes in Blacks and American Indians are higher (11.4% and 14.9% respectively) as compared to Whites (8.4%).
  • Health Disparities Interventions - This article from Medical Care Research and Review evaluates the effectiveness of health care interventions at improving health outcomes and/or reducing diabetes health disparities among racial/ethnic minorities with diabetes.
  • Differences in Care among the Medicare Population - Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published a data highlight on diabetes that examined racial and ethnic differences in self-reported measures on access to care, propensity to seek care, self-care knowledge and behaviors, diabetes management, and complications among Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older.

Continuing Education for Providers and Patients

  • Diabetes Quality Improvement - HRSA's course, Diabetes Quality Improvement Talks: Foundation of Change, is now available in the ECRI Institute's e-Learn portal. Originally presented in December 2017, this free one-hour course is now available online for CME credit. The course is for health centers and free clinics that are interested in learning more about HRSA's current diabetes quality improvement programs, strategies from health centers that have successfully implemented diabetes quality improvement initiatives, and resources available to assist in such efforts.
  • Patient Education Materials - The Massachusetts Clearinghouse is a resource to find diabetes health promotion materials for patients and providers. You can order materials for free, to use in the office for communication needs.

Community-Based Interventions

  • Community Preventive Services, Programs, and Other Interventions - The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) is an independent, nonfederal panel of public health and prevention experts that provides evidence-based findings and recommendations about community preventive services, programs, and other interventions aimed at improving population health. They have created a list of recommendations based on literature reviews that guides practices on how to implement team-based care for diabetes improvement efforts.
  • Cultural Competence - This article in Current Diabetes Reports discusses several successful, culturally competent community-based diabetes programs and the key elements needed to implement the programs at a community or health system level.
  • The Role of CHWs - This article in Current Diabetes Reports highlights the role of Community Health Workers in improving diabetes outcomes.
  • Chronic Disease Model for Diabetes Management - This article from Sinai Urban Health Institute highlights evidence-based interventions featuring community engagement as a practice and system-level focus of chronic disease and Type 2 diabetes management.
  • Food Insecurity - The Greater Boston Food Bank offers a food assistance locator to provide a list of food assistance options in eastern Massachusetts and the hours and days that they're open.

Lifestyle Change Programs

  • National Diabetes Education Program - The NDEP works collaboratively with its partners at the federal, state, and local levels to improve the treatment and outcomes for people with diabetes, promote early diagnosis, and prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.
  • National Diabetes Prevention Program - The NDDP is a CDC-recognized diabetes prevention lifestyle change program to help prevent or delay type 2 diabetes.
  • Self-Management Training - The New England Qualilty Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organizations (QIN-QIO) administers a diabetes patient education program offering evidenced-based self-management training. The program is designed to improve health outcomes among underserved Medicare populations.