Oral

Diabetes is a serious chronic disease that affects women in all life stages, from adolescence to the older years. Currently, an estimated 21 million people in the United States have diabetes, and more than 9 million are women. With the increasing life span of women in the United States, the number of women at risk for diabetes and its complications will continue to increase, placing added demands on the health care delivery system and on other sectors of society. In response to the growing epidemic of diabetes and its impact on women’s health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with our cosponsors—the American Diabetes Association, the American Public Health Association, and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials—founded the National Public Health Initiative on Diabetes and Women’s Health (Initiative). The major areas of focus for the Initiative were to develop a national action plan to address diabetes and women’s health issues across the life stages and to collaborate with organizations from the public, private, and voluntary sectors to intervene on behalf of women with or at risk for diabetes. In collaboration with national partners, the Initiative released a national action plan, identifying strategies needed to address the burden of diabetes for women. Objectives were developed to evaluate the efforts of cosponsors and partners and used as a tool to implement this action plan. This session will provide an overview of the history of this Initiative, our evaluation efforts, and the next steps.

Session Objectives: At the end of this session participants will be able to: 1. Identify strategies needed to address the burden of diabetes for women 2. Describe the current efforts to implement objectives related to diabetes and women’s health