Article Review: Diabetes

Diabetes Many have known that Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases in children and adolescents. In the whole United States, there are about 16 million adults who have diabetes and a third of them are undiagnosed (CDC). In East Harlem, New York however, the rates of complications and mortality is up to 5 times in an underprivileged community compared to the overall residents in New York City. There are 125,000 residents living in East Harlem, 50% are Latino, 40% African-American, 6% Caucasian and 4% of other races. In the United States, East Harlem characterizes mostly the minority communities. Aside from having very limited resources, they also bear chronic diseases like diabetes. East Harlem, not only that it’s residents are living with one third below the poverty level, it also has the highest level of poverty in the whole United States. There are 5 health care organizations in East Harlem, a city and community hospital, an academic tertiary center, including community health centers. The rates of hospitalization as well as mortality for an individual with diabetes are almost double in East Harlem comparing to New York City residents. In addition, amputations on individuals who are 65 years of age and older are at the highest rate in East Harlem compared to the whole New York City.
In an effort to find out possible cure for this underlying condition, a health provider collaboration in the community as well as researchers have surveyed the residents of East Harlem with diabetes in order to evaluate their understanding, management, the drawbacks of care and steps taken in response to these drawbacks. The participants were 993 persons with diabetes out of 1,423 who were identified out of the 5 healthcare organizations that lived in East Harlem. Although most of the people who suffer from diabetes know how to take their medicines, some of them do not comprehend the management aspect of their diabetes. There are also concerns about money, language as well as transportation which resulted to the individual’s diabetes care being limited. Analyses show that poorer health status is from those individuals who do not maintain a diabetic diet because of money concerns.
The group researchers as well as health providers came together to identify the concern of an individual taking care of his/her diabetes, including assessment of the need of obtaining the care in East Harlem. They also found out that even with those individuals who has the access to care there are still financial drawbacks to good diabetes care, and the necessity to discuss as well as improve of how individuals with diabetes manages this disease.