Advocate

State Diabetes Control Programs increase access to diabetes care and treatment and promote public awareness about diabetes. We are encouraging state legislators to increase funding for these programs and to expand existing prevention efforts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) fund Diabetes Control Programs in every state and the District of Columbia. These public health programs monitor diabetes prevalence, implement and evaluate diabetes interventions, work to increase access to quality diabetes care and treatment and promote public awareness about diabetes.

The backbone of the CDC Program is support for state and territorial Diabetes Prevention and Control Programs that work to prevent diabetes and its complications. These programs identify high-risk populations, improve the quality of diabetes care, ensure access to diabetes care by improving outreach and expanding services, and involve communities in improving diabetes care. The CDC and state programs work with partners across healthcare to help improve care for people with diabetes - improving quality of life and saving healthcare dollars.

Given the magnitude of the current diabetes epidemic and the relative lack of funding dedicated to it, states are not in the position to focus on the primary prevention of diabetes at this time.

Division of Diabetes Translation

The Division of Diabetes Translation's (DDT) goal is to reduce the burden of diabetes in the United States. The division works to achieve this goal by combining support for public health-oriented diabetes prevention and control programs (DPCPs) and translating diabetes research findings into widespread clinical and public health practice.

Develop state-based diabetes prevention and control programs

The division provides funding for state-based DPCPs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Core capacity-building activities emphasize developing state health department expertise to plan, design, and coordinate diabetes control activities.

Sixteen DPCPs receive expanded funding to establish comprehensive programs, so they can implement statewide, multilevel public health approaches to reduce the burden of diabetes. The primary goal of the state-based DPCPs is to improve access to affordable, high-quality diabetes care and services, with priority on reaching high-risk and disproportionately affected populations.

Capacity-building
With capacity-building, CDC awards an average of $270,000 to state health departments. These diabetes prevention and control programs:

• Develop initial expertise in diabetes control
• Provide a focal point for diabetes control
• Establish systems to define the scope of the diabetes problem
• Identify gaps in diabetes care, for both patient access and quality-of-care issues
• Develop and evaluate limited intervention projects
• Identify external supporters for diabetes control activities

Basic Implementation
With basic implementation, the CDC awards an average of $725,000 to state health departments. These diabetes prevention and control programs:

• Build on expertise in program, science, and policy areas to control and prevent diabetes
• Coordinate statewide diabetes control and prevention
• Expand systems to define and analyze the scope of the diabetes problem
• Improve access to diabetes care for all people and raise the quality of that care
• Use statewide public health projects to reduce diabetes-related problems
• Inform, educate, and empower external supporters to control and prevent diabetes