The Secret to Diabetes Prevention in Latino Communities

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An old-school approach is making news in Latino diabetes prevention…

Community outreach.

In Fresno, Calif., workers with the California Health Collaborative’s Diabetes Education Program go door to door to encourage Latino residents to attend their free, bilingual, six-week diabetes self-management classes.

They also heavily publicize their classes—in which participants are given a health assessment and cover topics from the diabetes pathology to stress management to nutrition and physical activity—among a population that is largely uninsured and undocumented.

“If they do receive medical care, it might only be when they suffer complications of diabetes, and are seen in an emergency room,” said Rosendo Iniguez, coordinator of the Diabetes Education Program, told California Health Report.

Across the country on in Central Falls, R.I., social service organization Progreso Latino offers free weekly diabetes prevention classes for bilingual Latinos, in addition to a free health clinic twice a month.

But that’s not the only program available in Rhode Island.

“Another free clinic, Clinica Esperanza, caters to Latinos with free or low cost health care and a diabetes prevention class. Women and Infants Hospital sends nurses into poor communities to check blood sugar and offer other preventive services. A program out of Brown University called Food on the Move brings a mobile farmers market to underserved communities,” according to Rhode Island Public Radio.

Experts add that, combined with preventive education, policies and environments need to change to increase access to and availability of options for healthy eating and exercise.

“Those sorts of things in conjunction with the diabetes prevention programs I think have a lot of potential,” hospital worker Joe Diaz told Rhode Island Public Radio. “If we’re talking about populations, we need to think about how we engage our communities in healthy living, in exercise, and make those options available for people.”