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– Black Women’s Health Imperative (Imperative) received an award today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to implement an effective program to prevent type 2 diabetes among Black women in seven states: California, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia.

This 2012 Prevention and Public Health Fund cooperative agreement is part of a national effort to reduce the number of new cases of type 2 diabetes through the National Diabetes Prevention Program. The program is based on a research study led by the National Institutes of Health and supported by CDC, which showed that people with pre-diabetes could reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes by making modest lifestyle changes.

CDC awarded $6.7 million to six organizations to bring the National Diabetes Prevention Program to their communities.

“Type 2 diabetes is a serious problem among Black women,” said Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, president and CEO of the Imperative. “The burden of diabetes takes an immeasurable toll on all sectors of society—individuals, families, employers, insurers and on the health care system. We welcome the chance to work with CDC to help Black women make lasting changes to protect their health.”

CDC estimates that of the 15.7 million people with diabetes in the United States, more than half (8.1 million) are women. Minority racial and ethnic groups are the hardest hit by type 2 diabetes; the prevalence is at least 2-4 times higher among Black women than among white women.

The funding will be used for the following:

To recruit and train lifestyle coaches to lead classes;

To build alliances with businesses and insurers to provide long-term financial support for lifestyle change classes as a covered health benefit for employees and to establish reimbursement criteria that rewards successful programs;

To offer classes through the National Diabetes Prevention Program that help participants learn how to make healthy lifestyle changes that can reduce the chance of developing type 2 diabetes by nearly 60 percent.

The Imperative seeks to improve the health and wellness of Black women by providing culturally appropriate health resources and information, health and wellness education, promoting advocacy and health policies and interpreting and issuing reports on relevant research about the health status of our nation’s Black women and girls.

For more information about the Imperative, visit . For more information about the National Diabetes Prevention Program, visit .

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