NATIONAL DIABETES EDUCATION PROGRAM
http://www.ndep.nih.gov and http://www.cdc.gov/team-ndep

Fiscal Year 2005 Accomplishments

The National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) is sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and is a subcommittee of the Federal Government’s Diabetes Mellitus Interagency Coordinating Committee (DMICC). The program develops information and educational messages and materials for people with diabetes and their families, health care providers, payers and purchasers of health care, health care system policymakers, and the general public, including people with undiagnosed diabetes and those at risk for the disease.

NDEP’s efforts are aided by a Steering Committee comprised of representatives from diabetes-related, health care, racial and ethnic, and voluntary service organizations. Federal liaisons to the NDEP Steering Committee include several representatives from the DMICC. Members of the Steering Committee serve on NDEP work groups that provide direction and help implement NDEP initiatives.

NDEP also has developed a Partnership Network of more than 200 organizations to help disseminate program messages to the mass media, community groups, and health systems that serve people with diabetes. The “Team Diabetes” website provides an interactive, online site for NDEP partners to exchange resources and information.

Fiscal Year 2005 Highlights

During FY 2005, NDEP supported a variety of activities to promote the importance of comprehensive diabetes care and diabetes prevention. Highlights of NDEP’s activities during the past year are summarized below.

Media Campaigns

From June 1998, when NDEP launched its first Public Service Advertisements (PSA) campaign, through September 30, 2005, NDEP’s diabetes control and prevention television PSAs have obtained more than $30 million in free advertising time; print PSAs have reached more than 53 million readers. Print and broadcast news coverage have reached more than 1 billion people. Publications have been distributed to more than 3 million consumers and to more than 550,000 health care providers. The NDEP website had more than 1.6 million visits in the past year, averaging about 138,000 visits each month. NDEP conducted extensive market research before initiating its PSA campaigns and developed the messages in conjunction with NDEP work groups. The program also provided ongoing support for continuing campaigns targeted to African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs).

The Small Steps. Big Rewards. Prevent Type 2 Diabetes campaign is based on the results of the Diabetes Prevention Program clinical trial that proved that diabetes could be prevented or delayed in an overweight population with pre-diabetes. The Small Steps campaign encourages people at high risk to lose a small amount of weight by eating healthy and getting 150 minutes of physical activity per week.

NDEP launched the first national multicultural diabetes prevention campaign in 2004. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary Rear Admiral Nathan Stinson and NIDDK Director Allen Spiegel, M.D., unveiled the new prevention campaigns targeted to high-risk ethnic groups. Campaign materials include motivation tip sheets, posters, and print and radio PSAs. Each set of materials is tailored for a high-risk group.

To help promote the campaign, NDEP assembled a team of people working to prevent diabetes in their own lives and in their communities. With the help of the Small Steps Team, NDEP launched several high-risk campaigns at venues across the country. In January 2005, the last prevention campaign was launched in Jacksonville, Florida. “It’s Not Too Late To Prevent Diabetes; Take Your First Step Today” targets older adults with the message that it is not too late to make lifestyle changes to prevent or delay type 2 diabetes. To reach even more AAPI populations with messages about diabetes prevention, in 2005 NDEP completed the translation of “Two Reasons I Find Time To Prevent Diabetes; My Future and Theirs” campaign materials into an additional seven additional AAPI languages.

In 2005, NDEP added a new target audience to promote diabetes prevention messages—women with a history of gestational diabetes (GDM) and their offspring. An expert panel reviewed the latest science on this topic, and a communication plan was developed that targets health care providers and women with a history of GDM to educate them about how to lower this risk. NDEP plans to launch this campaign in the spring of 2006 with educational materials for consumers and health professionals

Also launched in FY 2005 and targeting older adults is the newly revised “The Power To Control Diabetes Is in Your Hands” campaign. The campaign provides older adults with information on how to control their disease by regular self-monitoring of blood glucose and by following the “ABCs” of diabetes care to prevent or delay serious complications. The campaign also provides older adults with information on the newest Medicare benefits and how these benefits can help them manage their disease. Educational materials include a consumer brochure, available in English and Spanish, and a community action kit, a comprehensive resource designed to assist community organizations in helping their older adult members who are living with diabetes.

The “Be Smart About Your Heart: Control the ABCs of Diabetes” campaign creates awareness about the link between diabetes and heart disease and promotes comprehensive diabetes care to control blood glucose (A1C), blood pressure, and cholesterol—the “ABCs” of diabetes. In FY 2005, newly developed “ABCs of Diabetes” print ads were disseminated to promote this important message and distributed through the North American Press Syndicate. Also in FY 2005, NDEP launched Take Care of Your Heart. Manage Your Diabetes, a comprehensive diabetes campaign tailored for American Indians and Alaska Natives. 

NDEP created New Beginnings: A Guide for Living Well With Diabetes, to help groups facilitate dialog about diabetes and its complications. This discussion guide, targeting African Americans with diabetes, was developed to expand on the themes and educational opportunities brought out in The Debilitator, a docudrama developed by an independent film company, Millennium Filmworks, Inc. New Beginnings was designed for use by diabetes educators, church groups, clinics, hospitals, families, or anyone interested in talking about diabetes and its impact on African Americans.

Media Outreach

In conjunction with these awareness campaigns, NDEP continued to conduct media outreach in FY 2005 to obtain coverage about diabetes in the print and broadcast media. Messages associated with the three NDEP campaigns made a total of approximately 177 million media impressions. News stories about NDEP made nearly 88 million impressions. NDEP PSAs made more than 76 million impressions. NDEP was listed as a resource or source of information in news stories that made more than 12 million impressions. Media highlights for FY 2005 included articles in:

• Time magazine (circulation 21 million): “Diabetes and Heart Disease—An Intimate Connection” highlighted the “Control the ABCs of Diabetes” campaign.

• Newsweek magazine (circulation 3 million): included an advertorial on diabetes and heart disease and mentioned NDEP and the ABCs campaign.

• Ebony magazine (circulation 2 million) included a story about diabetes prevention and NDEP.

• The Dallas Morning News featured a story on the risk for diabetes in the Hispanic/Latino community and NDEP.

In November 2004, during National Diabetes Awareness Month, NDEP and the American Diabetes Association cosponsored a radio media tour on diabetes and cardiovascular disease that generated nearly 23 million impressions through 26 interviews and national airings on the CBS Radio Network, USA Radio Network, CNN Radio Network, Black Radio Network, and Hispanic News Service.

NDEP continued its partnership with BET.com by placing several articles on diabetes and African Americans that reached 800,000 readers each month.

An audio news release to support the Take Care of Your Heart, Manage Your Diabetes campaign generated nearly 900,000 impressions on networks including airing nationally on American Indian Radio, Native American Public Radio, and National Native News. 

NDEP Conference Participation

Program spokespersons gave presentations and represented NDEP at numerous professional meetings in FY 2005, including the American Public Health Association (November 2004), CDC’s Diabetes Translation Conference (May 2005), American Diabetes Association (June 2005), Administration on Aging (March 2005), Health Assistance Partnership (January 2005), American Society on Aging/National Council on the Aging (March 2005), American College of Physicians (April 2005), Endocrine Society (June 2005), and American Association of Diabetes Educators (August 2005).

Diabetes in Children and Adolescents

NDEP continues to receive positive feedback about its “Helping the Student With Diabetes Succeed: A Guide for School Personnel.” This manual helps school personnel ensure a safe learning environment for children with diabetes and equal access to all educational opportunities. As of September 2005, NDEP had distributed more than 100,000 copies of the guide, and the guide was sent to all chief state school officers. Partners continue to use the guide to educate school and health care personnel. State-based Diabetes Prevention and Control Programs have conducted training for school nurses and other school personnel and conducted numerous presentations or workshops at educational and health-related meetings. Articles have been written and published in health- and education-related professional newsletters and journals and consumer publications and generated more than 250,000 impressions.

NDEP updated the An Overview of Diabetes in Children and Adolescents fact sheet for health care professionals that is available from the NDEP website. To help teens with diabetes learn to cope with the emotional and psychosocial aspects of diabetes, the NDEP children’s work group produced a tip sheet, “Dealing With the Ups and Downs of Type 2 Diabetes.” For children at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new tip sheet, “Lower Your Risk for Ttype 2 Diabetes,” was developed to alert at-risk children, adolescents, and their families to take action to delay or prevent the onset of the disease. In addition, all six tips sheets for children with diabetes now are available in Spanish.

NDEP’s Children and Adolescents with Diabetes work group members continued to provide articles for a diabetes column in School Nurse News (circulation 12,500). In FY 2005, five articles were published that addressed issues related to diabetes in children. 

Systems Changes for Better Diabetes Care

NDEP’s Health Care Provider work group provided guidance for a new website, BetterDiabetesCare.nih.gov. This practical resource is designed to help health care providers make a difference in the way diabetes is prevented and treated. The website has been updated and provides models, links, resources, and tools to help the professional assess needs, plan strategies, implement actions, and evaluate results. In 2005, several interactive workshops were conducted to help participants learn to navigate and use the resources provided by the website. Also in 2005, a procedure was finalized to allow health care professionals who use the site to obtain continuing education credits through the Indiana University School of Medicine Reflective Learning Program.

NDEP’s Pharmacy, Podiatry, Optometry, and Dentistry work group developed a primer for pharmacists, podiatrists, optometrists, and dental professionals to encourage these health care providers to educate their patients about diabetes control and prevention. “Working Together To Manage Diabetes: A Guide for Pharmacists, Podiatrists, Optometrists, and Dental Professionals” outlines the diabetes care issues for each of the disciplines and promotes a proactive team approach to caring for people with diabetes. An extensive medication supplement lists information on medications related to the management of blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol and is being updated. Accompanying the primer is a poster designed to hang in providers’ offices, clinic waiting rooms, or exam rooms that is being translated into Spanish.

Diabetes at the Worksite

NDEP’s Business and Managed Care Work Group has designed a web-based resource that employers, human resource personnel, and health professionals can use to assess the scope of the diabetes problem in their workforces and to conduct diabetes education at the worksite. Hosted by the National Business Group on Health, this resource is available at http://www.diabetesatwork.org. New features on the website include updated information on diabetes and lesson plans with more information in Spanish, new PowerPoint and overhead formats, case studies of worksite interventions, materials on diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and presentations from Diabetes at Work workshops held around the country for business leaders, human resource personnel, and employee benefits managers.

Partnerships

NDEP partners help develop, distribute, and promote program messages and materials. In 2005, NDEP continued its partnership with BET.com. Monthly NDEP-featured articles are posted on the website, and a link to the NDEP website is given for more information.

The Rite Aid Pharmacy chain promoted the Small Steps prevention campaign by distributing materials at diabetes expos across the country. Rite Aid pharmacies held in-store diabetes events and distributed NDEP materials. Articles about NDEP resources and materials are placed regularly in the company’s The Diabetes Safety Net newsletter that is distributed to pharmacists; and NDEP materials have been sent to 160 Diabetes Care Specialists, who are Rite Aid pharmacists who receive special training in diabetes management.

In December 2004, the NDEP held its bi-annual Partnership Network meeting, “Links: Learn To Implement NDEP’s Knowledge and Successes.” NDEP partner presentations highlighted how NDEP campaigns and materials have been implemented at the state and local level with a wide variety of professional, consumer, and ethnic audiences.

NDEP News&Notes, a monthly email newsletter, provides partners with an update on NDEP initiatives, programs, activities, and products and provides highlights of partner activities. The quarterly email newsletter DPCP Digest provides a forum for state Diabetes Control and Prevention Programs to highlight and share NDEP-related activities.

Evaluation

In 2005, NDEP conducted two online, web-based partner activity surveys that asked partner organizations to report on their most recent activities. Support for NDEP campaigns continued to grow, with most partners promoting the diabetes prevention messages and disseminating these messages and materials at conferences and professional meetings. The NDEP evaluation work group completed the development of a logic model and evaluation framework to guide program planning and evaluation efforts. NDEP continued to collect existing diabetes data that closely measure the impact of the program. In 2005, NDEP received Office of Management and Budget clearance to conduct original survey research to track progress related to NDEP priority areas for which no measures currently exist.

NDEP Honors

In 2005, NDEP received a number of awards for its programs and products, including the Charles H. Best Medal for Distinguished Service in the Care of Diabetes from the American Diabetes Association, the NIH Plain Language Award, the National Mature Media Award, the Apex Award, The Communicator Award, and the National Health Information Award, for various NDEP products and programs.

Future Activities

During FY 2006, NDEP will continue to promote comprehensive diabetes control and diabetes prevention. In 2004, NDEP developed its Strategic Plan for the following 3 years. The emerging consensus from the Steering Committee recommended allocation of resources to diabetes prevention (50%), diabetes control (40%), and payer and provider issues (10%).

In the next year, NDEP plans to develop and disseminate a white paper to address the issue of the economic case for treating pre-diabetes and diabetes. NDEP also is completing development of tools for community health workers to use to spread the messages of diabetes prevention and control. Two new products for 2006 include a monograph highlighting the issues confronting South East Asian American immigrants (from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam) with regard to diabetes awareness, prevention, and management; and a capacity-building toolkit designed to help community-based organizations develop diabetes prevention and control outreach programs that specifically target AAPI communities.

As NDEP has developed a wide range of effective tools and materials for a variety of audiences in many languages and formats, the plan for moving forward is to get these tools and products into the hands of those who can use them effectively. NDEP and its partners are committed to this mission. For more information about the National Diabetes Education Program, please visit our websites at http://www.ndep.nih.gov and http://www.cdc.gov/team-ndep on the Internet.

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This page last updated on 5/17/2006. Return to the NIDDK Homepage.