Texas Legislature Expands State Resources for Community-Based Diabetes Outreach

Objective:  To provide an overview of the advocacy efforts made by the Texas Diabetes Council (TDC) and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Stark Diabetes Center (SDC) to expand model community based diabetes prevention and control program. 

Methods:  During both the 80th and 81st legislative sessions, the Texas Diabetes Prevention and Control Program (DPCP) and the TDC worked with UTMB at Galveston and its SDC to propose four regional centers located in Webb, Cameron, Nueces and Galveston counties.  The diabetes mortality rates within these counties are statistically significantly higher than the state rate.    SDC, TDC and local coalition advocates recommended legislatively-directed funds to reduce the health and economic burden of diabetes through expansion of the SDC’s.  This included organizing 50 Texas senators and representatives to visit the program’s Brownsville site, which is a Texas DPCP funded community based project.

Results:  Three-million per year in state funds were appropriated to the DPCP. This allows the establishment of 4 regional centers to implement evidence based diabetes prevention and control activities within high risk populations. 

Conclusion::  The regional centers will serve as models of effective, cost-containment disease prevention whose strategies can be exported to communities across the state.