Mérida, Yucatan, (September 10, 2021).- Good health practices for Meridans have allowed the City Council to be recognized at the national level and considered a benchmark in diabetes care.
In this context, the president of DIF Mérida, Diana Castillo Laviada, participated this morning in the Forum for Successful Experiences in the Matter of Municipal DIF 2021, held by the National Network of Municipal DIFs and of which Castillo Laviada is also co-president.
Before the representatives of the different National Systems for the Integral Development of the Family, the president of DIF Mérida presented the project “Cities Changing Diabetes”, a distinctive program of the recently concluded municipal administration and which will be continued for the present triennium.
Mérida is the second city to be part of the “Cities changing Diabetes” project, after Mexico City.
In his presentation, Castillo Laviada said that during the first administration 2012-2015, the Municipal Center for Nutritional and Diabetes Care (CEMANUD) was inaugurated, in order to provide prevention, promotion and care services to poor nutrition problems such as malnutrition, overweight or obesity, diabetes, among others, supporting the inhabitants of Mérida and its communities.
“One of the programs that were implemented with the creation of CEMANUD is” Education in Diabetes: 7 steps from control “, with which a comprehensive education is provided to people with diabetes, through self-control of this disease, avoiding complications and improving their quality of life, their finances and family integrity ”, explained Castillo Laviada.
According to data from the International Diabetes Federation, in 2000, there were an estimated 151 million adults with diabetes worldwide. Currently, it is estimated that 9.3% of adults between the ages of 20 and 79 have diabetes – a figure of 463 million people. In addition, 1.1 million children and adolescents under the age of 20 are living with type 1 diabetes, he added.
In 2018, she continued, the Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Municipality of Mérida and the Novo Nordisk laboratory, through which the municipality is included in the initiative “Cities Changing Diabetes”.
Subsequently, the Mérida City Council, through CEMANUD, together with the Autonomous University of Yucatán (UADY) generated the protocol “Cities changing diabetes: factors and experiences associated with Diabetes Mellitus in Mérida, Mexico”.
“This protocol aims to estimate the prevalence of adults between 20 and 69 years of age living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, in urban areas of the municipality of Mérida, identifying their geographical position in order to know the characteristics associated with the factors and experiences with which this condition is lived ”, she indicated.
The project was divided into two stages: the first had the objective of knowing the number of people who have diabetes mellitus 1 and 2 and with this to develop a descriptive profile of the people who live with this condition. In stage 2, aspects of the experience of the disease are explored, as well as identifying elements associated with vulnerability, she added.
Currently, the team at the Autonomous University of Yucatán is in the information analysis phase.
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