October is National Family Health Month, a time for people to take a personal health inventory and to examine the health habits and history of their entire family. NDEP would like to remind those who work with people at risk for type 2 diabetes that many serious diseases run in families, including diabetes. Talking with your relatives about family health history may make all the difference when it comes to preventing type 2 diabetes. Although a person can’t change their family’s health history, knowing about it can help them work with their health care team to take action on the things they can change. NDEP’s feature articles “Know Your Family Health History to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes” and “New Moms Can Prevent Diabetes By Keeping Up Healthy Habits” can be used as a resource.

The first half of October is also Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 through October 15) – a time to continue to recognize the culture, contributions, and heritage of Hispanic/Latino Americans. Encourage Hispanics/Latinos to find out their family health history and take steps to prevent or delay type 2 diabetes. Check out NDEP’s feature article, “Ten Ways Hispanics/Latinos Can Prevent Type 2 Diabetes,” the bilingual Prevent Type 2 Diabetes. Step by Step./Prevengamos la diabetes tipo 2. Paso a paso tip sheet, or the Ricas recetas para personas con diabetes y sus familiares (Tasty Recipes for People with Diabetes and Their Families) bilingual recipe booklet.

November is right around the corner, and NDEP has several new resources to help partners promote National Diabetes Awareness Month. The November campaign uses stories from real people to help raise awareness about preventing type 2 diabetes by conveying information about family history and gestational diabetes as risk factors for diabetes. This year’s activities build on the approach used for the 2009 Managing Diabetes campaign, which features testimonials from real people living with diabetes. Check out the November partner campaign page for resources you can use to share information with your constituents. Click here to download the partner tool kit. Check out the August 2010 Partner Webinar Presentation slides. The presentation explains how to use some of the tool kit items, highlights what partners did last year to promote NDEP’s 2009 National Diabetes Awareness Month campaign, and previews partners’ plans to use NDEP’s 2010 campaign.

In addition to the partner campaign page, NDEP recently launched a campaign page for consumers. This consumer-friendly page provides more information about the real people featured in NDEP’s campaign, including what they are doing to make changes to keep themselves – and their families – healthy.  The page also provides consumers with additional resources including a Family Health History Quiz. Direct people in your community to this webpage!

Here are some quick and simple things you can do to promote the November campaign.

• Share the November 2010 Campaign e-Newsletter Announcement via your e-newsletter or professional listservs.
• Add the prevention, control, or general campaign e-mail signature image to your e-mail messages. (NDEP has directions for adding the signatures to e-mails in Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007.)
• Post the Diabetes Runs in My Family Web Button on your website.
• Spread the word on the Internet! NDEP is engaging its social media followers with diabetes trivia, sharing interesting facts about the history of diabetes, and encouraging people to repost NDEP’s diabetes messages on their pages. You can help by following NDEP on Twitter and Facebook, sharing our messages with your social media followers, or even taking a guess at the trivia questions in November.

NDEP also wants to know what you are doing for National Diabetes Awareness Month. We encourage you to share information with NDEP and take pictures of your November activities. Submit descriptions of your activities and photos to Rachel Byrd at rbyrd@hagersharp.com. Photos and descriptions may appear in the Partner Spotlight or on NDEP’s Facebook page.

How do you adapt print materials into a language that is mostly spoken? That’s the challenge NDEP addressed in creating the 4 Steps to Control Your Diabetes. For Life. brochure in Haitian Creole. The brochure describes simple action steps in English and, on the facing page, in Haitian Creole. However, Haitian Creole is primarily a spoken, not written, language. Therefore NDEP, with the assistance of members of the African American/African Ancestry Work Group, developed an accompanying audio CD (similar to a book on tape), taped by a native speaker, so people with diabetes and their families can listen and follow along.

Now Haitian Creole speakers with diabetes and their family members have access to an important resource with simple yet attainable steps to controlling diabetes. NDEP encourages you to share this brochure/CD set with your partners. Click here to order your free copy today.

Support for Behavior Change Resource (SBCR), NDEP’s online library of resources on how to make healthy lifestyle changes, includes a variety of tools and programs for individuals and health care providers. To help acquaint you with the offerings available to you through the SBCR, a different resource from the library will be explored monthly. In recognition of National Family Health Month, this month’s featured resource is Side by Side: A partner approach to diabetes self-care.

Side by Side is a guide developed by the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) to help people with diabetes understand the seven self-care behaviors identified by AADE: healthy eating, being active, monitoring blood glucose levels, taking medication, problem solving, reducing risks, and healthy coping. The guide emphasizes that diabetes self-care does not mean “going it alone,” and recognizes the importance of a support system that includes health care professionals, family, and friends.

Side by Side is available for free online. Included in the guide is a worksheet designed to help the person with diabetes identify self-care obstacles and set goals. The worksheet can be taken to an appointment with a doctor or diabetes educator.

Find more resources for supporting healthy behavior change at www.YourDiabetesInfo.org/SBCR.

Coming Soon: Call for CDC/DDT Conference Submissions
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Division of Diabetes Translation (DDT) will convene its 34th Annual Diabetes Translation Conference, April 11-14, 2011, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The theme is “Changing the Course of Diabetes: Optimizing Health for All.” The conference will bring together more than 600 participants from a wide range of local, state, federal, and territorial governmental agencies and private-sector diabetes partners. The call for abstracts and conference information will be available soon at www.cdc.gov/diabetes/about/conferences.htm. Abstracts are due October 29, 2010.

Flu Season & Diabetes
The start of fall also means the start of flu season. It is important that people with diabetes get a flu shot. People with diabetes are more likely to get flu-related complications, and the flu may interfere with blood glucose management. Click here for more information.

Encourage Eye Health in People with Diabetes
Nearly three out of 10 people with diabetes have diabetic retinopathy, and about one in 20 have retinopathy that threatens their vision, according to data collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) from 2005 to 2008. Help people with diabetes avoid becoming one of these statistics. For tips on encouraging eye health, check out Prevent diabetes problems: Keep your eyes healthy from the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse, and Watch out for your vision! from the National Eye Institute. Both resources are available in English and Spanish.

NDEP Spokesperson Alfonso Vargas, M.D. Participates in Spanish-Language Radio Media Tour
NDEP thanks Alfonso Vargas, M.D., vice chair of NDEP’s Diabetes in Children and Adolescents Work Group, who recently discussed “Managing Type 2 Diabetes in Youth” during a four-hour radio media tour (RMT) reaching nearly 500,000 listeners and airing on more than 100 Spanish-language radio stations across the country. National radio stations included CNN en Español Radio and Metro Source en Español. Dr. Vargas is also professor and vice chairman for Education and International Affairs in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center at Children’s Hospital. During the interviews, Dr. Vargas promoted NDEP’s bilingual teen tip sheet series, Helping the Student with Diabetes Succeed: A Guide for School Personnel, and Transitions from Pediatric to Adult Care tool. To listen to an excerpt of the interviews, click here.

Partners Shine in NDEP’s Partner Spotlight
Lights, camera, action! NDEP’s Partner Spotlight webpage is updated regularly to feature the great work that our partners are doing to promote NDEP. In October, the Spotlight is on AmerisourceBergen. Since November 2009, AmerisourceBergen Corporation has incorporated NDEP resources in its Diabetes Shoppe® program for pharmacists serving patients with diabetes and their families. Diabetes Shoppe provides its member pharmacies with promotional packages that include diabetes resources both for the pharmacist and his or her patients. AmerisourceBergen has co-branded three NDEP resources in the first year of this partnership. Click here to read more.

Also in the October Spotlight:

• Wisconsin Diabetes Prevention and Control Program Develops Table Tents for Corporate Lunchrooms Using NDEP Materials
• Trish Herrmann of the Arizona Diabetes Prevention and Control Program Promotes NDEP Messages on CBS Radio Stations

NDEP continues to invite partners to share their successes so we can feature them each month. Let us know about your activities. Complete the submission form and send it to Darise Deal at ddeal@hagersharp.com.

NDEP has many additional resources that you can share at health fairs, conferences, educational sessions, or as part of your organization’s social media outreach efforts. Check out the NDEP 2010 Outreach and Promotional Plan: At-a-Glance for more fourth quarter resources.

In future issues 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 resources and tool kits to promote diabetes awareness in your community. Or take our feature articles, press releases, media advisories, and public service announcements, and add your organization’s logo.

Using social media? So are we! Don’t forget to follow NDEP on Twitter @NDEP, “like” our page on Facebook, and look for our videos on YouTube. Feel free to “re-tweet” and share NDEP posts with your social media friends! Don’t wait for your monthly issue of NEWS & NOTES to learn what’s new and exciting from NDEP. Click on the RSS icon on the NDEP homepage to subscribe!

By using our promotional tools, everybody wins. Your constituents receive important health information, 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. NEWS & NOTES features resources that tie into quarterly promotions and can help us promote NDEP together.

If you have any questions about NDEP’s resources, promotions efforts, and how you might help promote NDEP, please contact Diane Tuncer at diane.tuncer@nih.gov.

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

• American Academy of Pediatrics
  October 2-5, 2010, San Francisco, CA
• Binational Policy Forum on Migration and Health during the 10th Annual Binational Health Week
  October 3-5, 2010, Guanajuato, MX
  Betsy Rodríguez M.S.N., C.D.E. will present a session entitled “Diabetes and Obesity: A Major Health Issue in Latinos” on October 4.
• American Dietetic Association
  November 6-9, 2010, Boston, MA
• American Public Health Association
  November 6-11, 2010, Denver, CO
  Judith A. McDivitt, Ph.D. will present a session entitled “Understanding Audience Segments for Diabetes Prevention Strategies and Messages” on November 10 at 12:30 p.m.