Diabetes is a major public health concern due to its prevalence, as well as, morbidity, mortality,
and economic burden related to associated complications (Casagrande, Cowie, & Fradkin, 2017).
According to the CDC (201
...
Diabetes is a major public health concern due to its prevalence, as well as, morbidity, mortality,
and economic burden related to associated complications (Casagrande, Cowie, & Fradkin, 2017).
According to the CDC (2017), more than 30 million Americans are living with diabetes mellitus
and the incidence of type II diabetes mellitus is on the rise with 1.5 million new diagnoses in
2015. In Florida, approximately 13.1% of the adult population have diabetes and an estimated
105,000 people are diagnosed with diabetes each year (Florida Diabetes Report, 2017).
According to Curley and Vitale (2016), public health metrics and qualitative metrics are
resources that can be used to understand and identify and measure a health outcome. With this
information in mind, it is imperative that advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) working
in Florida utilize every resource available to identify different outcomes related to diabetes
within their community. One of the resources APRNs in Florida can use to help identify different
outcomes related to diabetes is the Florida Diabetes Report (FDR, 2017) prepared by the Florida
Advisory Council. This report presents statistics on the scope of diabetes in Florida as well as
public health consequences and financial impact on the community (FDR, 2017). The FDR also
presents recommendations to address diabetes which include requiring health plans to cover
CDC-recognized diabetes prevention programs as a health benefit, increasing awareness about
the signs and symptoms of diabetes to promote early prevention and diagnosis, increasing and
appropriately allocating funds to the Diabetes Advisory Council (DAC), supporting policy
change to reduce the impact of diabetes, increasing access to bariatric surgery for extremely
obese patients, and requiring all health care professional to take continuing education courses in
diabetes.
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