The Lake Foundation teamed up with Diabetes UK in early 2017 to deliver a Diabetes Community Champions project in Croydon aimed at the black community.

Diabetes affects 1 in 13 people in Croydon with over 19,000 affected and an additional 6400 people who don’t know they have it. Diabetics are three times more likely to develop renal failure, 2.5 times more likely to develop heart failure and twice as likely to develop stroke. Additionally, in Croydon, 38% of amputations are in diabetics and 14% of sight loss occurs in diabetics.

There are a number of high risk groups in Croydon including the black community who are three times more likely to develop diabetes than their white counterparts and hence there is a need to focus on this community.

Diabetes costs Croydon £123.7M per year, these costs are related to treatment, management of complications and wider societal costs such as informal care, social care and lost productivity.

Through out project 17 diabetes community champions were recruited and trained and they have been able to reach hundreds of people with the key messages about diabetes and its prevention. The Lake Foundation has now moved to the Caribbean and Diabetes UK is continuing with this work. A full report will be available in 2018 but you can read a short update here.