Since 1997, the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) has been working to “change the way diabetes is treated.” Although the primary target audience for awareness, education and behavior change is people with diabetes, NDEP has identified payers and purchasers of health care as an influential secondary audience. With most people spending more than a third of their waking hours at the worksite, and many obtaining their health care coverage through their employer, America’s payers and purchasers play an important role in care and education for individuals with diabetes. This presentation will describe formative research conducted with potential partners whose knowledge, support, and buy-in are critical to the effective dissemination of diabetes education messages and materials. The research objective was to conduct focus groups with target audience segments in the following areas: 1) perspective as caregivers or gatekeepers promoting healthy work environments, 2) importance and costs of diabetes in the workplace, 3) motivation to adopt health intervention programs, and 4) barriers and potential solutions to action. The audience segments — large and small business, health care professionals, and managed care organizations — were recruited through contacts in the pertinent fields and criteria related to worksite roles to ensure representative input. Each audience segment revealed different levels of knowledge and needs for diabetes education. Despite the differences, all segments concurred that the most useful type of diabetes education information needs to be “turnkey” style and include simple, easy to understand materials. The research lead to development of a practical “worksite intervention kit.”
Learning Objectives: The audience will be able to describe the importance of the worksite as an education setting for diabetes. The audience will be able to describe two formative research findings on diabetes for each of the 4 target audience segments
Keywords: Diabetes, Worksite
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.