World Diabetes Day Update

Filed in archive Fun on November 18, 2008

Here's the latest update from the World Diabetes Day "Young Voices: Life With Diabetes" Forum event hosted by Novo Nordisk, Discovery Health, Discovery Education and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) to bring together teens and young adults living with type 1 diabetes to share their experiences dealing with life transitions while managing the disease. The event took place at ESPN Zone in New York City's Time Square.

As you know, the event was the culmination of the Young Voices: Life With Diabetes national Web-based video campaign that asked participants to submit a short video to discoveryhealth.com highlighting what they would tell the next president about improving life with diabetes. At the event, the creators of the top three video submissions (including Luke Widbin, whose video has been viewed over 10,800 times here) were selected by participants.

Event ambassadors affected by type 1 diabetes guided the interactive discussion, including ESPN anchor Brian Kenny; Formula 3 racecar driver Charlie Kimball; Miss Black USA 2007, Kalilah Harris; former Mets player Todd Zeile; and country music star Steve Wariner. More photos here.

At the event, Dr. Barbara Anderson unveiled data from the DAWN youth WebTalk survey which Novo Nordisk conducted in partnership with the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD). The survey polled over 9,200 respondents from around the world, including 314 young adults with diabetes, 1613 parents/caregivers of children with diabetes and 102 healthcare professionals in the US. The survey revealed:

• Most of the parents and young adults surveyed thought that schools should have teachers who are better informed about diabetes (80% and 73% respectively) or know how to deal with an emergency diabetes situation (80% and 69% respectively)


• 61% of the young adults with diabetes said it was important to talk with other people their age who have diabetes; 81% of the parents felt this was important


• Despite the availability of youth camps, local events in some areas and networking sites on the Internet, 41% of the young adults surveyed had not been involved with any diabetes-related youth activities (compared to 34% for all participating countries); however, 60% would be interested in doing so.

USAToday.com posted an article about the data here.

Read the full press release.