Staff Report
The Native American Diabetes Program, a division of UNM's Internal Medicine Department, was recently awarded a $1 million National Institutes of Health research grant for a five-year study to focus on diabetes prevention and education of American Indian women.
The new research study, called Sharing Wisdom, is scheduled to begin early this year. The program will include learning activities for the women and their children to promote the idea that having a family develop better nutrition and health practices will prevent diabetes for future generations as well in the present.
"UNM is at the forefront of this project," University President Bill Gordon said. "This is a very important grant and a very important program that reaches to out those throughout the state of New Mexico. Diabetes is a major health problem in this state and we look forward to seeing the positive results of this project."
The late Janette Carter, M.D., conceived the idea for the project. Janice Thompson, interim director of Native American Diabetes Program, will direct the project and the principal investigators are Carla Herman, M.D., and Dorothy Gohdes, M.D. Other staff members working on the project are Georgia Perez and Marla N. Pardilla, who are already working with American Indian communities to prevent diabetes.
The Native American Diabetes Program will recruit American Indian women ages 18 to 40 to participate in the program. A total of 200 American Indian women will be selected during a ten-year period.
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Women selected for the study will be paid, and the intervention program will be designed as a healthy lifestyle education program. All participants will be monitored at the General Research Center at UNM Hospital, and the active group will be enrolled in a program for six months with one meeting per month.
For more information, contact the Native American Diabetes Program at 272-8465.
