Advocacy toolkit and charter for global diabetes awareness

Calling the World to Action on Diabetes: An Advocacy Toolkit is a guide by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) that bridges global to local diabetes advocacy through information, guidance and key tools and resources. The toolkit provides an overview of the upcoming United Nations High-Level Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases, practical guidance on effective advocacy and campaigning and useful downloadable resources such as sample letters, press releases, downloadable media such as podcasts and PowerPoint presentations, key messages and sound bites and other advocacy publications.

The advocacy toolkit includes the International Charter of Rights and Responsibilities of People with Diabetes. The charter sets out the rights as well as the responsibilities of people with diabetes in terms of care, information and education and social justice. It represents the gold standard to which all countries and people can aspire. IDF hopes the charter will raise awareness of the rights of people with diabetes, inspire collective action to tackle the stigma and discrimination that many people with diabetes face, and prove to be a powerful advocacy tool for the global diabetes community.

Click here to access the PDF of Calling the World to Action on Diabetes: An Advocacy Toolkit.

Click here to access the PDF of the International Charter of Rights and Responsibilities of People with Diabetes.

Famine linked to non-communicable diseases in Nigeria

Fetal and infant undernutrition is associated with significantly increased risk of hypertension, overweight and impaired glucose tolerance or diabetes among Nigerians who were born during the famine that afflicted the Biafra region of Nigeria during its civil war (1967-1970). Of the one to three million Igbo people that are estimated to have lost their lives during the Nigerian Civil War, only about 10 percent died of military violence. The majority succumbed to starvation.

 Prevention of undernutrition during pregnancy and in infancy should therefore be given high priority in health, education and economic agendas.

 Source:
1. Hult M, Tornhammar P, Ueda P, et al. Hypertension, diabetes and overweight: looming legacies of the Biafran Famine. PLoS ONE 2010; 5(10): e13582. (open access)

Diabetes is a major public health problem in China

Diabetes has become a major public health problem in China. Rapid economic growth, an increase in life expectancy and adoption of unhealthy lifestyles has contributed to the increase in diabetes among Chinese adults.

More than 92 million Chinese men and women have diabetes and 148 million have pre-diabetes, according to a study in the  New England Journal of Medicine.

The China National Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders Study is based on a nationally representative survey in which nearly 50,000 adults aged 20 years and older from 14 provinces and municipalities throughout China participated over a one-year period beginning in 2007.

Read more at Suite101.

Source:
1. Yang W, Lu J, Weng J, et al. Prevalence of diabetes among men and women in China. N Engl J Med 2010; 362: 1090-1101. (open access)

Non-communicable disease risk factors in rural India

India’s current epidemic of non-communicable diseases has resulted from increased urbanization, changing lifestyles and people living longer. But a study has found that non-communicable disease risk factors, including tobacco smoking and obesity, are strikingly high even among rural populations.

The study focused on rural populations because two thirds of India’s one billion people still live in rural areas. Rural populations have limited access to health care and can least afford to pay for the high treatment costs associated with chronic conditions.

The prevalence of non-communicable (NCD) risk factors was the following:

• Tobacco use (40 percent men, four percent women)
• Low fruit and vegetable intake (69 percent men, 75 percent women)
• Obesity (19 percent men, 28 percent women)
• High cholesterol (33 percent men, 35 percent women)
• Hypertension (20 percent men, 22 percent women)
• Diabetes (six percent men, five percent women)
• Underweight (21 percent men, 18 percent women)

Read more at Suite101.com.

Source:
1. Kinra S, Bowen LJ, Lyngdoh T, et al. Sociodemographic patterning of non-communicable disease risk factors in rural India: a cross sectional study. BMJ 2010; 341: c4974. (open access)