THE Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) will be placing special focus on engaging young people and educating them about diabetes for November, which is being observed as Diabetes Awareness Month.

Speaking at this week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange, medical epidemiologist with the MOHW Dr Julia Rowe Porter said a key activity will involve the ministry teaming with the Diabetes Association of Jamaica to engage school nurses in making presentations to students and the school community. This is among several events to be held in recognition of the month.

Rowe Porter said the school nurses will organise the sessions at the ground level with students, and the ministry, along with the Diabetes Association of Jamaica, will provide them with standardised presentations to be shared.

“We are working with the school nurses so that they can sit with the children in their own space and time to do presentations to the children and the staff so that we go into the community with those messages, and we are also having other talks that we are organising with corporate entities and other community groups on diabetes — both face-to-face and online,” she said.

Rowe Porter said that messaging through children is a key strategy for the ministry’s campaign, noting that to further engage this cohort, a poster competition was also launched on Monday targeting students in grades five to nine, in which they are to depict the theme for the month.

The ministry’s campaign officially launches on Tuesday with a luncheon. Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton will give the keynote address.

Rowe Porter said: “We are going to have food that is made from Jamaican ground provisions [which are in] abundance and cost-effective…we are going to showcase that. We want that to springboard the messaging especially in terms of healthy eating, because [un]healthy eating is one of the main risk factors not just for diabetes but for other non-communicable diseases (NCDs).”

Further, the medical epidemiologist said the month of activities is being used to flag diabetes as a major public health issue, “because our statistics are going in the wrong direction”.

“We want to ensure that the message goes out not just to the general population, but we want the messages to be about and from our children as well because our statistics are showing that our children and adolescents are becoming more and more affected by diabetes,” she said.

In the meantime, clinical coordinator at the Diabetes Association of Jamaica (DAJ) nurse Stephanie Morris said the entity will also be carrying out its own activities for the month, including offering free screenings.

“We are going to be doing our outreach services. We have gotten sponsored for a few tests such as blood sugar, blood pressure, HbA1c for diabetic persons. So we will be visiting the different communities to conduct screenings throughout the month,” she said. The HbA1c [haemoglobin A1c] test shows the average level of blood sugar over the past two to three months.

“We are also going to be visiting different work places to screen, especially in the offices where persons are sedentary. We want to also present about diabetes, the risk factors and also to do brief screening sessions — pressure and sugar for those persons,” she said.

Morris said that the DAJ also intends to have educational sessions and support group sessions where individuals will be able to go into their offices to get free educational sessions about diabetes, including how to use the different machines, how to take insulin, and so on.

“We are also going to be doing free blood pressure, blood sugar tests throughout the month to anybody who wishes to access it at our head office at 1 Downer Avenue,” she said.

On Diabetes Awareness Day, which is November 14, the DAJ will have an outside broadcast as well as a community health day where individuals will be able to access all its services for free. These include blood pressure, blood sugar, HBA1C, electrocardiogram (ECG), total cholesterol, consultation, as well as diabetes education.

The public is being invited to visit the website: www.ncdip.moh.gov.jm and the MOHW’s social media pages for further details on the month of activities.