Civic and Community Engagement Commons^™

Educating And Empowering Elders: Improving The Health Of Senior Latino Diabetics Through Community Collaboration, G. D. Cleghorn, Jean Lussier, Martha Velez, Marianna Canovitch, Marilyn Licciardello, Sarah Stanlick

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death among Americans.1 As of 2005, estimates indicate 20.8 million people – 7 percent of the population – afflicted by diabetes, 6.2 million of which are undiagnosed. 1 While diabetes is a growing problem for the United States as a whole, older, poverty-stricken Latinos and other minority groups have felt the encumbrance of this trend most intensely.2 In Massachusetts, the burden of diabetes among Caribbean Latinos is 11.8 percent, which is 2.5 times greater than the prevalence for the majority of the population in the state …