Diabetes – a major health challenge
Diabetes is a chronic disease that impacts millions of lives across the globe, and November is diabetes awareness month. It’s one of the major health and development challenges of this century. Research and development are critical in helping us develop new evidence-based policies to help change this situation. Beta is working with eminent research groups across Europe and Australia to help them translate research outcomes into policy options, with a big focus on diabetes.
How we are supporting diabetes projects
Our communications and policy experts are working in some inspiring collaborations, funded by the EU’s research programme Horizon 2020.
DynaHEALTH, which concluded last year, focused on healthy and active ageing through understanding how we can reduce our risk of developing obesity and type 2 diabetes in later life. The Beta team coordinated the development of a publication aimed at healthcare policy makers to share recommendations from the research. One of the key findings was identifying an opportunity at pre-school age where intervention is key to contributing to reducing the risks of disease in later life. This age group is often overlooked by healthcare systems and is a critical stage in a child’s development.
One of our current health projects is Bump2Baby and Me. It will trial an innovative health coaching app for pregnant women at risk of gestational diabetes, a condition which causes complications in pregnancy and can lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes in later life for both mum and baby.
Another, LongITools, is investigating how our living environment interacts with our genetics and biology, and how this then affects our risk of developing obesity and type 2 diabetes.