Common circumstances and a common opponent are linking public health professionals from opposite sides of the globe. On September 28-30, a delegation from New Zealand will visit Project DIRECT (Diabetes Interventions Reaching and Educating Communities Together), a division of Wake County Human Services, to find strategies to address the burden of diabetes in New Zealand. A press conference is scheduled for Monday, September 29, at 2:30 p.m. in Roberts Park, 1300 E. Martin St. in Raleigh. The park's phone number is 919-831-6830.
Almost 30,000 Wake County adults were diagnosed with diabetes in 2000, according to the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics. The true number of cases may be up to 50% higher because of undiagnosed cases of Type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes affects certain racial and socioeconomic groups disproportionately. For example, the prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes is 1.5 times greater in African-American residents than in whites. In 2000, the death rate for African-American residents was about 2.5 times higher than for whites. Similarly, Maori and Pacific Islanders, a pair of disadvantaged minority groups in New Zealand, have chronic diseases at a higher rate than other New Zealanders.
Project DIRECT is a comprehensive, community-based demonstration project designed to respond to the excessive and unnecessary burden of diabetes among African-Americans in southeast Raleigh. The Project is a collaboration between the community of Southeast Raleigh, Wake County Human Services, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The project works to address the burden of diabetes by increasing physical activity, knowledge of nutritional guidelines and diabetes self-management skills. One key tool in prevention and treatment of the disease is outreach through the faith community using Congregational Health Assessment Tool (CHAT), working with leadership of African-American churches to assess the health and well-being of their congregations (with consultation from faculty at North Carolina Central University Department of Health Education), and developing individual church health plans.
The head of the New Zealand delegation, Dr. Andrew Lindsay, public health physician for the Counties Manukau District Health Board in Auckland, New Zealand, contacted Project DIRECT to suggest the visit. By observing Project DIRECT in action in Wake County, the New Zealand team hopes to gain valuable information to implement in their country.