With nearly 21 million people living with diabetes in the United States, the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) has developed a discussion guide which targets one of the nation’s disproportionately affected populations, blacks. The guide, titled New Beginnings: A Discussion Guide for Living Well with Diabetes, is a companion piece to The Debilitator, a short film independently produced and distributed by Millennium Filmworks, Inc. The Debilitator is a docudrama that takes viewers on an emotional journey with the film’s lead character who has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and is experiencing some of the symptoms associated with the disease.

The guide will assist employers, community health workers, health care providers, faith-based organizations, diabetes educators, and others who work with the public in facilitating discussions about the impact of diabetes in their lives. NDEP urges blacks to make diabetes a priority during February Black History Month.

Statistics:

Blacks are 1.8 times more likely to have diabetes than whites, with an estimated 3.2 million non-Hispanic blacks living with the disease today.
Diabetes is the 6^th leading cause of death in the United States and can lead to heart disease, stroke, amputation, and blindness.
Overall, the risk for death among people with diabetes is about twice that of people without diabetes of similar age.
Diabetes can be a costly disease, with direct and indirect costs estimated at $132 billion annually.

The National Diabetes Education Program is a joint initiative of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) charged with reducing the burden of diabetes and its complications.

For more information, or to obtain a copy of the discussion guide, please visit www.ndep.nih.gov.

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Page last modified: December 20, 2005
Content Source: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Division of Diabetes Translation

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