Diabetes as a community health problem

We tend to think of diabetes as a personal health issue to be treated with medication, diet, and exercise. Treated with both medicine and lifestyle controls.

But, as this article points out, when diabetes becomes a community health issue it sometimes calls for a very different kind of treatment approach.

When loss of habitat resulted in a decline in the moose population in the Opasquayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, hunters were unable to provide for their families. They went on welfare and began drinking. The women no longer had the work of preparing meat or hides. Sons no longer had pride in going out with the men. Rates of abuse, crime and diabetes went up.

The government poured money into diabetes prevention programs – toward monitoring symptoms and glucose in the blood. The rates of diabetes and of crime continued to rise.

"But as we watched the moose population go up after a moose management program was instituted in 1975, we saw the diabetes and abuse go down," said Henry Lickers, ...