South Asian Adolescent Diabetes Awareness Program 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Without proper management of risk factors (things that can increase/decrease risk) while they are young, these teenagers are more likely to grow up and also develop diabetes. The goal of the SAADAP is to teach South Asian teens with family history of diabetes everything they need to know about the disease so that they can build healthy habits as they get older and move into adulthood. We want to give these teens the tools and information they need to make healthy choices for a diabetes-free future.

 

THE PROGRAM

The SAADAP is a pilot program that ran for the very first time with a group of teenagers in the Peel Region. We collected research throughout the program to determine if our approach is effective, and what needs to be changed to make it better. 

 

Click here to read more about our use of Photovoice methodology to learn more about the health behaviours and attitudes of our participants. This was a qualitative component of the research study.

 

FUNDING
This research study has been funded by the Lawson Foundation. Click here for more information.

 

TEAM

Principal Investigator:      Dr. Ananya Banerjee 
 

Co-investigators:                Dr. Harpreet Bajaj, Dr. Russell de Souza, Dr. Baiju Shah and Dr. Jennifer Price
 

Collaborators:                      STOP Diabetes Foundation
 

Research Team:                   Avantika Mathur-Balendra, Anisha Mahajan, Marlon Teekah,
                                                      Nazima Qureshi, Shindujan Yogaratnam

 

STEERING COMMITTEE

Lalitha Bhagavatheeswaran

Mireille Landry

Erika Kouzoukaz

Kamna Mehra

Vanita Pais

Siva Swaminathan

Jovita Sundaramoorthy

Balneet Singh

Saeeda Irfan

Mokshi Virk

Priya Prabhakar

 

YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD

Ananya Kakkar

Kevin Virk

Sarojini Dharmaraj

Jhanvi Shah

Gurleen Ghotra

Kushmeet Grewal

Juhi Thakkar

Amaresh Bhaskaran

Isha Dalal

 

VOLUNTEERS

Ravnit Dhak

Erika Kouzoukas

Amina Khan

Nousin Hussain

Evelyn Ascencio

Shudipta Islam

Dr. Inderjit Bhatia

Kulsajan Bhatia

Harsimran Arora

Sahana Kesavarajah

Neha Modgil

Karthika Yogaratnam

Vaenthan Jeevarajah

 

MEDIA

Click here to view the media features of this study.

 

BACKGROUND

SAADAP stands for the "South Asian Adolescent Diabetes Awareness Program." Individuals originating from South
Asian countries (including India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal
and Bangladesh) are at increased risk for developing Type 2 Diabetes compared to people from other parts of the world. Additionally, the risk for developing diabetes increases even more if there isfamily history of diabetes. This means that
South Asian teenagers who have a family history of diabetes
 (for example, their parent or sibling has Type 2 Diabetes) 
are a high risk group.