The Atlantic “Diabetes Divide” Event Discusses Challenges in Diabetes

Last week, The Atlantic held an event called The Diabetes Divide – cool to see them working on diabetes! The subtitle of the day – “Cities, Inequality and the Spread of a Disease” – highlighted the event’s focus on public health. We heard lots on the social determinants of diabetes, headlined by several speakers who discussed the barriers to changing our environment, the need for cost-effective innovation, and the path to preventative medicine. It was terrific to see such a diverse variety of healthcare providers, urban planners, and other leaders in the room, including our very own Kelly Close!

See below for some of our favorite quotes from the event. Also, check out the event page to watch the entire discussion here.

“I have to start by saying that I wanted to see what the breakfast was going to be at this diabetes event. Was it going to be something with low-sugar? No, instead we have chocolate croissants and muffins. This is a normal thing that you see. I think it speaks to the challenge out there.”

– Ms. Mary Louise Kelly, The Atlantic

“It’s not easy to exercise right; it’s not easy to eat right. People have a couple strikes against them before they even start.”

– Mr. Dan Glickman, Executive Director, Aspen Institute Congressional Program

“We’re treating the disease as acute care, rather than preventive. We’re not being proactive. We can’t do much until we make cultural changes in society to take stigma away from diabetes. I can guarantee you that more people in your life have diabetes, but no one talks about it.”

– Ms. Christel Aprigliano, CEO, The Diabetes Collective, theperfectd.com

“Increasingly, medical schools are taking diabetes and obesity epidemics seriously. Unfortunately, the incentive is that doctors are rewarded when they touch a patient and do a procedure. So you’ll get more procedures and less prevention. We’re moving more towards population health and we’re now increasingly rewarded for doing a good job of prevention of ‘badness’ or bad outcomes.”

– Dr. Ronald Tamler, Medical Director, Mount Sinai Clinical Diabetes Institute

“We want to make sure that the best and brightest are leaving medical school wanting to address these big problems and that they get incentives. I’m not sure that this is actually happening in many cases. We need to figure out what we need to do to get our doctors and medical schools and societies to address this in every piece of what we’re doing.”

– Ms. Kelly Close, Founder, The diaTribe Foundation

“From the prevention standpoint, we’ve been talking a lot about how we can build capacity and train staff to effectively incorporate them. From the perspective of a daily healthcare worker, how can we build up their toolkit in diabetes?”

– Ms. Lori Rose Benson, VP of Healthy Lifestyles, YMCA of Greater New York

Rapid-fire Question: What gives you hope?

“The bionic pancreas.” – Ms. Aprigliano
“Partnerships. Public-private partnerships and understanding where we all intersect in this complex puzzle.” – Ms. Benson
“The cultural, social science, and a bigger focus on that.” – Ms. Close
“Partnership with community.” – Dr. Tamler

Watch the full video of the panel dicussion below!