Stockton is a hotbed of diabetes. A university partnership advances community training | Opinion

One of the epicenters of the nation’s growing diabetes health crisis is Stockton, where nearly 60% of the population has diabetes or prediabetes. It’s an ideal community to explore how to improve care.

Too often, diabetes is seen as a personal failing: Too much junk food, not enough exercise. But the truth is that people with diabetes are failed by fragmented social and healthcare systems that lack the capacity to deliver early diagnoses and needed ongoing support. We must strengthen the pipeline of health and social workers with the right expertise if we’re to turn the tide against the diabetes epidemic.

So that’s exactly what our two organizations — the University of the Pacific and Abbott Fund — teamed up to do five years ago.

The diabetes challenge starts with diagnosis. More than one in five Americans with diabetes don’t know they have it. Getting diagnosed can be difficult: Front line workers who see at-risk people on a daily basis — like social workers, pharmacists and community health workers — may not be trained to spot symptoms of diabetes or connect people with help.

There are also socioeconomic barriers to diagnosis. For the nearly 100 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, a visit with a medical professional is often an expense they can’t afford.

Many communities — like Stockton — have a shortage of primary care providers, nurses, dietitians and pharmacists, all of whom play important and complementary roles in diabetes management. Cultural and language barriers can play a role as well, a factor that’s exacerbated by non-diverse or overworked health care providers.

Our homegrown solution is to expand the community’s expertise in diabetes.

The University of the Pacific and Abbott Fund joined forces five years ago to advance Abbott’s Future Well Communities initiative in Stockton. In the past half-decade, new education programs have provided diabetes-specific training to more than 300 nurses, social workers, dietitians, dentists, pharmacists and community health workers who care for nearly 40,000 people.

These front line professionals are trained to consider both the medical and social components of diabetes. Many of our graduates hail from the same communities — or even neighborhoods — they end up serving.

This gives nurses like Alex Marapao a firsthand understanding of the unique challenges her patients face, allowing her to quickly build rapport and trust. A Stockton native and University of the Pacific graduate, Marapao grew up with family members who live with diabetes.

According to Marapao, providing healthcare professionals with community-focused diabetes expertise makes these initiatives “not only unique, but essential.”

Another one of our graduates, Ana Garcia, leads a team of social workers. Together, they review clients’ case files for diabetes risk factors that they might have previously missed. When appropriate, they connect clients with care and support that is often provided by other Future Well Communities partner organizations — including things like transportation to appointments or personalized nutrition counseling.

It was important to make sure that the people we educated pursued full-time local employment opportunities to help solve the problems our community was facing. That’s why we offer scholarships to students from the community who commit to practice their profession in Stockton for at least two years post-graduation.

Three of the program’s nursing students assisted in launching a gestational diabetes program for expectant mothers with Medicaid coverage at St. Joseph’s Medical Center, less than two miles from University of the Pacific’s Stockton campus. The program empowers women with gestational diabetes to manage their blood sugar through education on monitoring, nutrition, exercise and breastfeeding.

Because our students had an innate understanding of the interplay between a chronic condition like diabetes and social determinants of health, they were able to offer patients counseling on things like nutrition and food security that those with more conventional medical training could not.

A number of dentists have also taken advantage of our online certificate program. They’ve learned how to better identify oral symptoms of diabetes and compassionately raise the issue with patients. They serve as another touch-point in supportive diabetes care.

Our efforts have started to remedy long-standing gaps in Stockton’s healthcare workforce — and keep some of the city’s best and brightest here. To end the diabetes epidemic, we must confront the persistent gaps in diagnosis, access to care, education and support that fuel it.

This story was originally published October 6, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Stockton is a hotbed of diabetes. A university partnership advances community training | Opinion."