Harvard symposium to tackle increasing diabetes among refugees
With diabetes rapidly spreading around the globe, its prevalence among refugees and others fleeing war and natural disaster has also risen. But awareness of diabetes as a medical issue humanitarian workers should be ready to deal with has lagged. That can lead to poor blood-sugar control among migrating diabetics and an unprepared medical system receiving them. That combination can be deadly for those with Type 1 diabetes — dependent on injections of insulin — and potentially debilitating for those with Type 2. Lindsay Jaacks, assistant professor of global health at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and Sylvia Kehlenbrink, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and an endocrinologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, have convened a symposium to raise awareness, share experiences from the field, and begin to shape a broad strategy to address this issue. Jaacks and Kehlenbrink discussed the April 4‒5 conference, at the Martin Conference...