CDC Awards Grant To Diabetes Prevention And Control Alliance To Expand National Program To Prevent Type 2 Diabetes

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded UnitedHealth Group’s Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance (DPCA) a grant to expand the reach of the DPCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program.

The DPCA is a community-based initiative aimed at tackling the epidemic of type 2 diabetes and prediabetes. The DPCA will expand the CDC-led National Diabetes Prevention Program in Colorado, Tennessee and Washington.

The National Diabetes Prevention Program is an innovative lifestyle coaching program. It is conducted in a group setting through community organizations that helps people with prediabetes and who are at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes make healthy lifestyle changes and reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by nearly 60 percent. These changes include healthy eating, increased physical activity and other lifestyle choices. The program is modeled after the Diabetes Prevention Program, a research study led by the National Institutes of Health and supported by the CDC.

The DPCA currently offers the National Diabetes Prevention Program through local YMCAs and community health centers in 73 markets in 31 states.

The grant is being awarded through the 2012 Prevention and Public Health Fund cooperative agreement, which is part of a national effort to reduce chronic disease including the number of new cases of type 2 diabetes. CDC awarded $6.7 million to six organizations, including the DPCA, to expand the reach of the National Diabetes Prevention Program.

“Diabetes is taking a devastating toll on the health and financial resources of our country,” said Deneen Vojta, M.D., senior vice president of UnitedHealth Group and chief clinical officer of the DPCA. “The CDC’s grant enables us to help more people prevent type 2 diabetes and its deadly complications and empower them to take control of their health.”

There are nearly 26 million American adults with diabetes – 90 percent or more of them with the often preventable form, type 2 diabetes. Another 79 million Americans – more than a third of the adult population – have prediabetes, a condition of elevated blood sugar that often leads to type 2 diabetes within a few years.

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