Following in the steps of SECURE THE FUTURE®, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation’s landmark initiative to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa (for which Bristol-Myers Squibb won CECP's Excellence Award  in 2011), Together on Diabetes®: Communities Uniting to Meet America’s Diabetes Challenge (ToD), confronts this growing problem.  Launched last November and funded at $100 million over 5 years, it focuses on diagnosed and undiagnosed adults living with type 2 diabetes in the U.S.  And since diabetes management and control is largely self-management that takes place in the patient’s home and community,  the initiative aims to strengthen patient self-management and care navigation as well as community support and mobilization efforts. The initiative is also encouraging a radical rethink of the way diabetes control efforts are approached, designed, implemented and measured given the current and future scale of the epidemic and the duration of the patient’s disease journey. In line with the Foundation mission to reduce health disparities, ToD also is giving special focus to high risk and underserved populations with a set of grants focused on African-American women, Appalachians and Native Americans.

In this work, we are drawing on several lessons from HIV/AIDS in Africa.  One key lesson is about how to mobilize and broadly engage the resources of communities in the response.  This involves both helping those already engaged in the fight against diabetes to link and leverage their efforts for greater impact and reaching outside of that circle to “unusual suspects” who may have yet to realize that they have a role to play or a resource to contribute – like workplaces being viewed as environments for health behavior promotion as many schools have become under Let’s Move or a church cook influencing the diets of her congregation by serving healthy dishes and sharing recipes.

A year into this initiative, I am inspired and heartened by the work of our partners and their highly innovative and collaborative projects. Their work is profiled in our first annual report  and interactive map. Much work lies ahead for all of us, but I sense we are almost at a tipping point where understanding, urgency, commitment and action are about to converge and we can begin to make significant strides against America’s diabetes challenge.

Read press release, "Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation’s Together on Diabetes® Initiative Marks First Anniversary by Awarding $18.4 Million in Grants to Help Communities Hardest Hit by Diabetes, Issuing Annual Report" »