FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 16, 2000

For further information, contact:
Susan G. Zepeda
Chair, Health Funders Partnership
Phone: 714-245-1650
Fax: 714-245-1653

Ed Kacic
Chair-Elect
949-253-2959

HEALTH FUNDERS LAUNCH DIABETES INITIATIVE

When health care providers gather, the stories abound: The teen who was barred from wearing her insulin pump because school officials thought it looked like a pager; the grandmother with diabetes who postponed seeking care, because she thought insulin treatment would lead to amputations; the construction worker who could see a doctor, but couldn't afford the medication required to manage his diabetes.

Seeking to move beyond stories to solutions, eight local health grant-makers, the County Health Care Agency and others have come together to fund a multiyear community diabetes initiative. Their goal: to change the way local systems respond to this chronic, debilitating disease. They have reached beyond the "usual suspects" to invite restaurant owners, recreation specialists, lawmakers and researchers - as well as healthcare providers and persons living with diabetes - to help design this multiyear initiative, now well on its way to gathering funding of more than one million dollars to address this critical community need.

Key stakeholders with varying perspectives on the disease - all holding part of the solution - have been invited to a June 1 strategy session, to help the grantmakers put their money where it can make a difference, in changing the experience of diabetics and their families living and working in Orange County.

Calling themselves The Health Funders Partnership of Orange County, the group brings together executive directors of private and corporate foundations with government leaders and academic researchers, to design collaborative responses to the pressing health care needs in Orange County. Using the Orange County Health Needs Assessment, itself a collaborative effort, the group identified access to care as a pressing need. They were particularly struck by the different impact and outcomes a chronic disease such as diabetes has on families of limited financial resources. This led to a shared commitment to design and implement a program to address the need for better diabetes care.

Partnership members include: The HealthCare Foundation for Orange County, the Irvine Health Foundation, Orange County Community Foundation, PacifiCare Foundation, Pacific Life Foundation, St. Joseph Health System Foundation, Sisters of St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation, and UniHealth Foundation, with the support of the County Health Care Agency, CalOPTIMA, and the statewide healthcare foundations - The California Wellness Foundation, the California Endowment, and the California HealthCare Foundation.

"What's exciting about taking a systems approach to diabetes," said Partnership Chair Susan Zepeda, "is that with education, treatment, and lifestyle changes persons with diabetes can change the course and outcome of this deadly disease. Results are clearly measurable." Zepeda indicated the Partnership hopes to build on the successes of smaller-scale interventions - such as the Latino Health Access intervention with Latino and Vietnamese families with diabetes. In that smaller-scale project, participants used education, medication, exercise and changes in diet to modify their blood sugar levels and improve their health.

The Centers for Disease Control singled out diabetes, with special target objectives, for inclusion in their Healthy People 2010 initiative, noting that "the number of persons with diabetes has increased steadily over the last decade." CDC's newest report projects that the toll of diabetes will worsen before it improves, especially in vulnerable, high-risk populations.