Community Organizations

To reverse the diabetes epidemic in New York, health care providers, policymakers, and community leaders must work together to help New Yorkers prevent and manage diabetes. The Campaign is working with community- and faith-based organizations to implement and expand diabetes prevention, screening, and management and ensure that New Yorkers get the clinical care they need. The Campaign will initially focus on where people with the greatest risk for diabetes and its complications live and worship, launching initiatives among faith-based networks and housing authorities and later supporting worksite efforts.

The Campaign has gathered information and tools that community- and faith-based leaders and organizations can use to help improve the lives of their members with or at risk for diabetes. To access these resources, choose from Data, Tools, Models & Research, or Projects below.

For a tool that can be used to put data related to diabetes on a community-level map, click CommunityWalk.

Faith-Based Initiative

The Campaign selected faith-based organizations as one of the first community initiatives of the Campaign. Faith-based organizations are trusted sources of information and activity in their communities and, if they are motivated and supported, they can influence their membership to improve their health.

In December 2009, the Campaign awarded a grant to The Institute for Leadership to advance one of NYSHealth's main objectives: to mobilize communities to spread programs that help prevent, identify, and manage diabetes in places where people live, work and worship. Specifically, this grant will work with faith-based organizations (FBOs) across New York. The Diabetes Campaign’s Faith-Based Initiative will target regions hardest hit by diabetes in New York State: the Finger Lakes, Hudson Valley, Long Island, New York City, and Niagara County.

To see the materials for our faith-based campaign, please visit http://www.faithfightsdiabetes.org.

YMCA Initiative

Another area of investment for the Campaign is a community-based approach that focuses on diabetes prevention among New Yorkers at a high risk for diabetes. With a $375,000 grant to the New York State YMCA Foundation, NYSHealth is supporting programs at Ys in 10 regions across the State to implement a community-based diabetes prevention program to stop the onset of Type 2 diabetes.

The initiative is a partnership among the New York State YMCA Foundation, the New York State Department of Health’s Diabetes Prevention and Control Program, and NYSHealth, offering sessions on healthy diets, exercise, and behavioral change in a group environment for community members with pre-diabetes, which occurs when an individual’s blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. People with pre-diabetes are five to 15 times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than someone without the condition. It increases their risk of developing heart disease, stroke, and eye disease.

The program is available to residents in the following areas: Capital District, Binghamton, Buffalo, Long Island, Middletown, Plattsburgh, New York City, Rochester, Syracuse and Watertown. To find a participating Y in your area, click here.