Dr. Joyce Yu-Chia Lee Receives UC END DISPARITIES Pilot Award
Dr. Joyce Yu-Chia Lee, health sciences clinical professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy Practice, has received a UC END DISPARITIES pilot award for her proposal, “Community-based Interprofessional Health Safety Net to Stop Diabetes: A Feasibility and Acceptability Study.”
The research outlines health risks for people with prediabetes and how collaboration with community pharmacists can provide accessible intervention and timely care. With the support of the UC END DISPARITIES pilot award, Dr. Lee and her team aim “to evaluate the receptiveness of an innovative community partnership between health clinics (specifically, UCI Health Family Health Centers) and [a] grocery store chain to stop diabetes through the formation of a health safety net.”
UC END DISPARITIES (or the UCLA-UCI Center for Eliminating Cardiometabolic Disparities in Multi-Ethnic Populations) was established with the goal of increasing the participation of minorities in clinical trials, ultimately to create solutions for health issues that impact such populations. Their mission is to “address inequities to prevent the development of cardiometabolic disease that disproportionately affects low-income and minority groups.” The Center distributes pilot project awards to fund research that supports this mission.
For people with prediabetes, lifestyle modification is the cornerstone to prevent or delay the development of type 2 diabetes. However, active commitment to change among people with prediabetes is often hampered due to the insidious nature of prediabetes, where those afflicted are presented with minimal to no health warning signs. Coupled with the busy lifestyle of many, the urgency to reverse prediabetes is often overlooked. Dr. Lee’s work aims to overcome these challenges by instilling positive changes and convenience for people with prediabetes.
In Orange County, approximately 46% of residents have prediabetes, and there is a higher impact on minority populations. In her proposal, Dr. Lee highlighted that studies have shown that high-risk ethnic groups are converted to type 2 diabetes more rapidly, at younger ages, and at lower-fasting glucose values than European populations, leading to a shorter window for diabetes prevention. Despite the urgency to manage prediabetes, up to 80% fail to follow up with any interventions, such as medical nutrition therapy, exercise, and/or metformin use in certain high-risk people with prediabetes.
Dr. Lee’s study intends to include eligible subjects with prediabetes, including those who are underserved. Based on their place of residence or personal preference, eligible subjects can select from up to 33 available Albertsons grocery store locations in Orange County and work with a community pharmacist who will serve as their dedicated Health Ambassador.
The proposal outlines how community pharmacists can become an essential resource in managing prediabetes. Pharmacists working in grocery and drug stores are the closest source of healthcare for many people: “Community pharmacists are the most accessible Health Ambassadors situated in the heart of the community. In a study that examined the location of 61,715 pharmacies, 9 out of 10 Americans were reported to live within 5 miles of a pharmacy, and approximately 50% of the population live within 1 mile of any pharmacy.” Therefore, tapping into the geographical convenience of these stores and placing care inside supermarkets — where the public visits, on average, 8 times per month — would minimize lost-to-follow-up cases commonly observed in clinic settings.
During the course of the study, eligible subjects will regularly interact with Albertsons pharmacists to receive one-on-one care and learn about lifestyle changes and goal setting via digital apps, educational materials, and in-store walks with pharmacists to identify healthy foods, among other methods to reverse prediabetes. This innovative care delivery and partnership is interprofessional in nature, involving referrals from care providers and support from dietitians.
“Collaboration with our community partners means upgrading individualized care to another level. We can tailor-meet the needs of our patients by increasing care access and convenience that only community partners are able to provide. When all resources are utilized appropriately and efficiently, people will have more options and flexibility to achieve their health targets in a timely manner,” said Dr. Lee.
She continued, “My ultimate goal is to find effective and practical methods to stop diabetes. Community pharmacists have so much to offer, and together, they can add value to safeguard at-risk individuals from disease progression and complications and support and empower our patients in their own health.”