The primary objective of most diabetes associations could be summarized as follows: to improve the quality of life of people with diabetes and their families.
To achieve this important mission, associations have focused on:
Education, public awareness and the organization of meetings were the most common activities undertaken by the associations that responded to the survey, as indicated in the figure below.
Education
Of the associations which organized diabetes education, 82% organized courses for people with diabetes while 67% had courses for healthcare professionals. Some 67% also produced educational materials.
Public awareness
Activities to raise public awareness included Word Diabetes Day (95% of respondents), media events (78%), other national campaigns (63%) and diabetes fairs (49%). It is also significant to note that almost 77% of respondents were involved in primary prevention activities for type 2 diabetes.
Meetings
Meetings organized by the associations were mostly seminars (80% of respondents) followed by workshops and congresses. These meetings were in most cases addressed to healthcare professionals and to a lesser extent to people with diabetes.
Advocacy
The top three issues in advocacy were:
1. Ensuring quality care
2. Defending the rights of people with diabetes
3. Promoting education to people with diabetes and healthcare professionals
These top issues were fully in line with the goals set by the associations in their mission statements. Other major issues which they were concerned with were prevention, screening, cost of insulin, costs/reimbursement of care, insurance, driving licence, empowerment, and influencing public health policies through collaboration with governments, health organizations, other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and universities.
Magazines
Magazines published by diabetes associations were largely addressed to people with diabetes (92% of respondents), while 80% targeted healthcare professionals and only 48% focused on opinion leaders, as shown in the figure below. Half of these magazines were addressed to all three target groups.
National diabetes programmes
More than half of the associations that responded indicated that there was a national diabetes programme in their country. In 83% of the responses, the programme was being implemented with 73% of the associations involved in its implementation. More than 90% of the associations co-operated with a national health authority in their country, which in many cases was the Ministry or Department of Health.