Research Description
Diabetes that starts in pregnancy is called gestational diabetes (GDM). GDM increases the chances that a mother and her child will get type 2 diabetes (T2D) after the pregnancy. The Stopping GDM in Daughters and Mothers (SGDM) program seeks to reduce the risk of GDM among American Indian (AI) girls and women, who have a higher rate of GDM than other groups. SGDM is an educational program that teaches girls and women how to be as healthy as possible before they get pregnant (e.g., having a healthy weight). The SGDM includes an online book and a 45-minute video. To make the program more engaging so that more people will use it, the project team plans to develop a Social Media Toolkit outlining how SGDM content can be shared on social media. To be sure the Toolkit will fit the needs of AI girls and women, the project team will talk with groups of AI girls and young women, their mothers, and health care providers to find what they would like the social media approach to be like (e.g., Instagram vs. Facebook, written posts vs. videos). The Toolkit will be built to fit their preferences and then will be tested with AI girls/young women, their mothers, and health care providers. The project team will evaluate the Toolkit by asking participants to share their perceptions, measuring how much people engaged with the Toolkit (e.g., number of likes), and measuring change in participants’ knowledge, beliefs, and behavior related to GDM.Research Profile
What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes?American Indians and Alaska Natives develop gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) -- i.e., diabetes that occurs during pregnancy -- at twice the rate of non-Hispanic Whites. The Stopping Gestational Diabetes in Daughters and Mothers (SGDM) program was designed to reduce the risk that Native adolescents and young women will develop GDM. This project will result in the development of a social media toolkit to complement the SGDM program. The toolkit will allow educational content from the SGDM program to be shared with Native communities via social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, Facebook). The toolkit will increase the availability of the SGDM program to Native adolescents and women nationally.
If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?The ultimate goal of this project is to reduce the chances that Native adolescents and young women will develop GDM. GDM is associated with serious problems for women and their offspring. Women who develop GDM are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes after pregnancy and their children are more likely to develop obesity and type 2 diabetes. If the program can reduce the rate at which Native adolescents and young women develop GDM, both mothers and their children may be able to avoid these serious problems.
Why important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play?I am committed to improving health equity for Native people. American Indians and Alaska Natives experience higher rates of diabetes than other racial and ethnic groups in the country. For the past 15 years, I have been working to develop interventions for Native populations that can reduce the risk of developing diabetes or help people to better manage their diabetes. I was a member of the research team that developed the Stopping Gestational Diabetes in Daughters and Mothers (SGDM) program. This project will allow me to expand the availability of this intervention more widely to Native adolescents and young women across the country. The ultimate goal of this work is to reduce the number of Native people who develop diabetes during pregnancy, thus reducing the negative consequences that mothers and their children experience (e.g., type 2 diabetes).
In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?I believe we should focus additional efforts on the prevention of diabetes, especially in communities that are at high risk (including American Indians and Alaska Natives). Native people experience an intergenerational cycle of diabetes, with women developing diabetes during pregnancy (GDM), which then puts their offspring at risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes. Most GDM interventions focus on improving outcomes after women have developed GDM. In contrast, the Stopping Gestational Diabetes in Daughters and Mothers (SGDM) program focuses on preventing the development of diabetes during pregnancy, which could prevent negative consequences for both mothers and children. Primary prevention of diabetes should be a key goal of future research activities.