Research in Progress

Preventing Type 2 diabetes in Aboriginal Peoples of Canada

It's a frightening thought, but Type 2 diabetes can strike at any age. When this happens, it can lead to a multitude of complications, including heart disease, stroke, lower limb amputations, kidney failure and blindness. Dr. Ann C. Macaulay, from McGill University, is the scientific director of a CAHR through the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project Center for Research and Training in Diabetes Prevention in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, Quebec.

Dr. Macaulay, along with researchers from Kahnawake, the Université de Montréal and McGill University, have based this Center on the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP) which started in 1994. The goal of the Center is to expand on that project's success and to generate new knowledge for community-based primary prevention of Type 2 Diabetes. According to Dr. Macaulay, the CAHR funding is allowing for continuation and growth of the diabetes prevention work that began in 1994

"Canada is taking a leading role by asking communities and universities to work together," she says.

The Center has five primary goals: (i) to build on the knowledge generated by KSDPP, and understand the social, environmental, familial and individual determinants involved with adopting healthy lifestyles related to Type 2 diabetes; (ii) to identify the barriers and the factors that go along with implementing this kind of program; (iii) to develop new evaluation methods that capture more accurately the multi-dimensional nature of complex community-based tools (health education curricula, videos, participatory research, skill-sets that involve how to do a specific intervention, etc.); ( iv) to observe how information is disseminated to other aboriginal communities; (v) to develop tools which can be used to evaluate disseminated interventions and can be modified to fit other Aboriginal cultures.

This CAHR program has received the endorsement of Dr. Jeff Reading, Scientific Director for CIHR's Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health.

"We are delighted to have Jeff as an ex-officio supervisory board member of this CAHR," Dr. Macaulay observes.

Since Type 2 diabetes is a significant health concern, it should be noted that the disease is three times greater among Aboriginal communities than in the general population. Research methods for this CAHR will include nutrition research activities, physical activity research, community mobilization, dissemination research (research how the KSDPP model is adapted by other communities), training (Aboriginal community health workers and facilitation of research careers for Aboriginal peoples), and the communication of results and knowledge transfer.

In Spring and Fall 2002, data will be collected in Kahnawake, which is an eight-year follow up of the baseline data from 1994. Community members are well represented through a Community Advisory Board that meets every month. These volunteer members help in the intervention, prevention and evaluation of the CAHR as it goes along. Also involved in this CAHR is a Supervisory Board, made up of university and community researchers and representatives from Kahnawake.

While a lot of the Center's work may seem to be theoretical, the Center has greater ambitions.

"We're taking the theory of diabetes prevention," Dr Macaulay says, "and putting it into practice."

Further Information: www.ksdpp.org