The award-winning band The Jonas Brothers has teamed up with NDEP to appeal to young people with diabetes and their families to promote diabetes control in a new radio public service announcement (PSA). Brothers Nick (who has type 1 diabetes), Kevin, and Joe share tips for coping with diabetes and encourage people to help loved ones manage the disease. They highlight NDEP as a resource.

The PSA can be downloaded and distributed to your local radio stations. Listen for the 30- and 60-second PSAs, airing on radio stations now!

The 2009 NDEP Partnership Network Meeting - “The Power of NDEP in Your Community” - will be held August 17-18 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Communications Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The meeting will consist of general sessions and workshops offered within three session tracks: Partnerships and Collaborations, Program Implementation and Evaluation, and Marketing and Media.

This meeting is open to community leaders, diabetes advocates, diabetes program coordinators, diabetes educators, health care professionals, health communications professionals, and anyone interested in diabetes prevention and control. For more information, contact Keith Aikens at keith.aikens@fleishman.com.

Capacity Building for Diabetes Outreach: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Organizations Serving Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities has been developed to assist state diabetes prevention and control programs (DPCPs) and community organizations with the challenges of diabetes outreach, education, prevention, and control.

The toolkit serves as a capacity building resource for organizations to create or enhance diabetes prevention and control programs in eight core areas: community assessments, evaluation, organizational support, staffing, building coalitions and partnerships, funding, community outreach, and marketing. A product of the NDEP Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Work Group, the examples used in the toolkit are drawn from AAPI community experiences. However, the principles for building infrastructure around diabetes prevention and control are applicable regardless of the ethnicities served.

To order your free copy of the toolkit, visit www.yourdiabetesinfo.org or call 1-888-693-NDEP (6337).

NDEP is currently promoting taking care of your feet if you have diabetes using a new feature article entitled, “Be Sweet to Your Feet if You Have Diabetes”* to general print and online media. The article highlights the importance of proper foot care for people with diabetes. For more tips to help people with diabetes take good care of their feet, read NDEP’s Take Care of Your Feet for a Lifetime brochure.

NDEP encourages you to continue to promote “Be Sweet to Your Feet if You Have Diabetes”* to local media and to your partners. For example, add your organization’s logo,* name, mission, and contact information to highlight how you and NDEP are working together. Then submit the article to your local newspaper or promote it in your organization’s newsletter.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added new resources for African American media to their Online Newsroom. The African American Media Resource section is designed to provide easy access to credible health information on topics like diabetes, and helpful links for African American media outlets as well as mainstream media that reach African American audiences. This resource includes up-to-date story ideas with African American readers in mind; biographies of African American experts at CDC; links to other sources of health information; and free, ready-to-print articles on health issues affecting African Americans.

Check out this new resource at www.cdc.gov/media/subtopic/resources/aaresource.htm.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has received new funds for Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010 as part of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), Pub. L. No. 111-5. The NIH has designated at least $200 million in FYs 2009 – 2010 for a new initiative called the NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research. This new program will support research on topic areas that address specific scientific and health research challenges in biomedical and behavioral research that would benefit from significant 2-year jumpstart funds. The application due date is April 27, 2009.

The NIH has identified a range of Challenge Areas that focus on specific knowledge gaps, scientific opportunities, new technologies, data generation, or research methods that would benefit from an influx of funds to quickly advance the area in significant ways. Each NIH Institute, Center, and Office has selected specific Challenge Topics within the broad Challenge Areas* related to its mission. The research in these Challenge Areas should have a high impact in biomedical or behavioral science and/or public health.

Quick Health Data Online is a free resource that provides access to comparative, county-level health data for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories and possessions. Provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health, it includes comprehensive data for both women and men on a variety of health-related topics, including diabetes. Quick Health Data Online has data on a number of different diabetes topics including adult rates of diabetes, diabetes death rates, mothers with diabetes, and exercise and obesity rates. In addition to diabetes, Quick Health Data Online features data on a variety of health indicators including chronic diseases, demographics, mortality, maternal and reproductive health, violence, prevention, access to care, and mental health. You can easily create tables, graphs, and maps for data on each health topic.

In May, NDEP will distribute two new feature articles to general audience and Asian American print and online media:

• “Grade-A Grocery List: Tips to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes”*
• “Grade-A Grocery List: Tips to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes in Asian Americans”*

Each article highlights grocery shopping tips for people at risk for type 2 diabetes and includes special audience-specific, healthy foods. For more tips on making healthy food choices to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes, read NDEP’s Get Real! You Don’t Have to Knock Yourself Out to Prevent Diabetes or Two Reasons I Find Time to Prevent Diabetes: My Future and Theirs* tip sheets.

In June, NDEP will distribute a new feature article entitled “Five Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Diabetes” authored by NDEP Chair-Elect Martha Funnell, M.S., R.N., C.D.E. to general print and online publications. The article provides questions that people can ask their doctor during their routine check-up in order to learn more about managing their disease. For more tips on managing diabetes, read NDEP’s 4 Steps to Control Your Diabetes. For Life. brochure.

In each issue of NEWS & NOTES look for NDEP promotional tools that are ready for you to personalize, customize, and distribute. For example, use our printer-ready public service announcements to make diabetes posters for upcoming events, health fairs, or your office. Use our customizable campaign tools to promote diabetes awareness in your community. Or take our feature articles, press releases, and public service announcements, and add your organization’s logo*.

By using our promotional tools, everybody wins. Your community newspaper receives a story with important health information for its readers, your organization receives good publicity, and you help NDEP continue to be the nation’s No. 1 resource for free information and materials on diabetes control and prevention. Each issue of NEWS & NOTES features tools that tie into the following month’s promotions and can help us promote NDEP together.

Stop by and visit NDEP at the following upcoming exhibits and presentations:

• Association of Health Care Journalists’ Health Journalism 2009
  April 16-19, 2009, Seattle, WA
• CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation’s 2009 Conference
  April 21-24, 2009, Long Beach, CA
  Look for several presentations by NDEP staff and work group members.
• American College of Physicians’ Internal Medicine 2009
  April 23-25, 2009, Philadelphia, PA
• American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists’ 18th Annual Meeting
  May 13-17, 2009, Houston, TX
• American Academy of Physician Assistants’ 37th Annual Conference
  May 23-28, 2009, San Diego, CA
• American Diabetes Association’s 69th Scientific Sessions 2009
  June 5-9, 2009, New Orleans, LA
  NDEP presentations will be June 8 from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. during a session entitled, “Helping You Change the Way Diabetes is Treated – In Your Practice, in Your Community, and in the Lives of Your Patients – An Update From the National Diabetes Education Program.” Highlights include presentations from Judith Fradkin, M.D., Ann Albright, Ph.D., R.D., Roger Chene, M.P.H., R.D., and Martha Funnell, M.S., R.N., C.D.E.
• The Endocrine Society’s 91st Annual Meeting
  June 10-13, 2009, Washington, DC
• American Academy of Nurse Practitioners’ 24th National Conference
  June 17-21, 2009, Nashville, TN
  Martha Funnell, M.S., R.N., C.D.E., will present June 17 at 1:30 p.m., “What’s New in Diabetes.”
• National Association of School Nurses’ 41st Annual Conference
  June 25-28, 2009, Boston, MA
  Joanne Gallivan, M.S., R.D., and Nichole Bobo, R.N., M.S.N., A.N.P., will present an overview of the NDEP School Guide on June 26 at 1:15 p.m. and June 27 at 1 p.m. during sessions entitled, “What’s New in the 2009 NDEP Diabetes School Guide?”