Educating and Empowering Elders: Improving the Health of Senior Latino Diabetics through Community Collaboration

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 (4.7 percent).3 The age-adjusted rate for Latinos with diabetes is 36.25 per 100,000—76 percent higher than the state rate of 20.56.4 If this trend continues, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes nationwide will skyrocket, as Hispanics constitute the largest and fastest-growing minority in the United States.