Research Description
Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) and their parents may struggle to effectively manage diabetes. In particular, adolescents from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds and adolescents with public insurance face many barriers to effective diabetes care. A major barrier to effective care is the current underutilization of technology, including continuous glucose monitoring. There are many identified barriers to technology use in adolescents; however, there are no current interventions that address barriers to technology use in adolescents, especially for adolescents from ethnic and racial minorities or from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The proposed pilot study is an integrated multidisciplinary intervention involving educational and psychological components. This intervention will address common barriers to technology use, including worries about technology, social concerns, and wear-related issues. We will examine whether the intervention leads to improvements in technology use, diabetes management, and psychosocial outcomes.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?This project plays an important role in understanding the barriers to using diabetes technology, with special attention to those in underserved populations. This intervention offers families time with diabetes care and education specialists and psychologists to provide education and support in guiding families through the uptake and continued use of Continuous Glucose Monitors. To improve access to care, families will choose to receive such support either through telehealth or in-person visits. Through this education and psychosocial support, this intervention aims to increase the use of technology and improve both psychosocial and glycemic outcomes.
If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?The goal of this project is to break down the barriers that keep you from having access to all the technology and support necessary either through telehealth or in person so that you take advantage of the technology and improve your time in range as well as decrease the stress and burden of living with diabetes.
Why important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play?My long-term career goal is to provide evidence-based research to clinicians and policymakers that will directly impact the care and support provided to youth with diabetes, especially those groups who often face the most barriers to resources. I am a daughter, wife, and mother of loved ones with diabetes and see first-hand the difference technology can make in health and reductions in stress. Should this pilot study have positive findings, we will then pursue a larger, randomized control trial, which can facilitate the dissemination and implementation of an intervention that reduces barriers to the uptake and continued use of technology in the most vulnerable pediatric populations.
In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?I see the future of diabetes research becoming more aware of the different experiences and complex needs of youth and their families in terms of diabetes management. I see the use of innovations in technology; not only in managing diabetes but in delivering the support that families need. Diabetes research will incorporate more mixed methods that will include the qualitative responses of individuals’ lived experiences so that clinical care can help patients improve their quality of life.