Research Description
There is much work that continues to be needed to improve treatment for youth with obesity at high risk for diabetes. The findings of this study will advance a line of research much needed to better understand outcomes and treatment for adolescents with obesity by shifting from focusing on obesity as an independent condition, and instead, examining it in the context of its comorbid conditions that may be important determinants of engagement, adherence, and outcomes. Youth with obesity, and who are transgender, represent a group that is significantly understudied and at high risk for the development of diabetes. To date, no research has examined ways to provide the best care for this population. We believe that this proposed research is highly innovative because it will be the first study to: (1) Describe the prevalence of obesity in transgender youth. (2) Obtain patient and provider feedback on best practices in managing obesity in transgender youth. (3) Develop a care pathway that transgender youth with obesity will find acceptable and relevant. It is critical that we shift from treating obesity as a global condition that increases the risk for diabetes. Instead, we must examine subpopulations.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?My research focuses on improving obesity care to reduce diabetes risk by focusing on a subgroup at potentially higher risk for the development of diabetes – transgender youth. By examining national trends and bringing together a group of providers, patients and families, we can develop a care pathway that is effective and acceptable to transgender youth. We know that current weight management efforts result in high attrition rates with some research indicating a lack of individualized care as a factor in families not completing programming. By looking at subgroups at high risk, learning from them on how to best provide care and developing pathways, we learn lessons that can be applied to more groups to prevent youth from developing diabetes.
If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?The hope with this project is to begin to identify factors and mechanisms that will prevent diabetes in the future. By working together with providers, patients and families, and researchers, we can develop best practices for how to develop care pathways. By developing a pathway to care, we can identify youth at early risk for diabetes and utilize an effective treatment plan to minimize their chances of developing diabetes.
Why important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play?In my work, I see the devastating impact that obesity has on children and adolescent’s physical and emotional health. As we look to science to develop best practices, we have gaps in how we support some high-risk groups in reducing their diabetes risk. It is exciting to think about how, through research and involving kids and their families in research, we may be able to help one group. This award is such a blessing to advance work to target one population that may be at higher risk for diabetes – transgender youth with obesity – that I hope can provide lessons learned to target other groups to prevent a course of diabetes.
In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?While diabetes may be a commonality, there is great variability in who receives a diabetes diagnosis and their course. I hope that research continues to look beyond the diagnosis and examine subgroups of individuals who may have differential risks and outcomes and target interventions to those groups. As we shift from a “one size fits all” approach, we can begin to make impact by recognizing the individual risk factors that uniquely affect a person, develop targeted treatments for those factors and ultimately, prevent a diagnosis of diabetes.