Diabetes Care Gets Boost From Agreement Between AAFP Foundation, Diabetes Educators

Peers for Progress, an initiative sponsored by the AAFP Foundation in partnership with the AAFP, recently announced a collaborative relationship with the American Association of Diabetes Educators, or AADE.

Peers for Progress, which is funded by a five-year, $15 million grant from the Eli Lilly and Co. Foundation, was formed last June to empower about 200,000 Americans with diabetes to become diabetes mentors to other patients with diabetes. The agreement with the AADE will provide a network of diabetes educators to teach the volunteer mentors how to mentor effectively.

These volunteers then will mentor other patients with diabetes to help them create sustainable behavioral changes that will improve long-term outcomes and quality of life. Eventually, some mentors may help the program expand by training other patients with diabetes to become mentors themselves.

"By pooling the knowledge, resources and experience of physicians, diabetes educators and patients, we can help people living with diabetes learn to better manage the emotional, social and daily self-care demands of the disease," says Kevin Peterson, M.D., M.P.H., of Minneapolis, president of Peers for Progress. "This is an innovative approach that stands to greatly improve the quality of life for people living with diabetes all over the world." Peterson is a faculty member at the University of Minnesota Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and director of the Minnesota AFP Research Network.

"The AADE is proud to be a part of this (Peers for Progress) program," says AADE President Amparo Gonzalez, R.N., C.D.E. "With diabetes reaching epidemic proportions in the United States and in the rest of the world, there is a critical need to expand the support network provided to all people with diabetes. Diabetes mentors will help patients implement the physician's clinical recommendations and the diabetes educator's behavior change strategies."

Peers for Progress also has issued a call for proposals for six to eight evaluation grants. The grants, ranging from $500,000 to $1 million each, will fund research into the contributions of peer support interventions for people with diabetes, building the evidence base for peer support in diabetes management. Grantees will test the overall benefits of peer support as it relates to improved diabetes self-management, improved quality of life and long-term health outcomes.

Preliminary project descriptions are due July 1, 2008; applications are due Sept. 1, 2008.