Diabetes Debunked: What You Need To Know

The goal of this Honors creative project is to encourage health literacy in populations who are curious about Type 2 Diabetes or have Type 2 Diabetes. From personal experience, I have seen noncompliance in diabetics and wondered why since it is a serious, progressive disease. After researching, I found that some diabetics do not understand the scope of their disease, especially since many of the dangerous complications that arise from Type 2 Diabetes do not present until later in the disease when it is too late. For my senior project, I decided to write an educational paper as a supplement to health education. It is a semi-comprehensive article about what Type 2 Diabetes really is, the physiological foundations, the treatment options, and tips for adherence. The idea is to boil complex terms into more practical language so that people who do not have backgrounds in biology or biochemistry could understand the content. The tone is meant to be more casual, as if one were having a conversation with them. Since Type 2 Diabetes can affect people as early as 30 years, I decided to also convert the paper into a podcast to reach the younger populations. Podcasts are a great, transportable way to access information, and they have risen in popularity over the past few years. I will be submitting both the “magazine” article and podcast mini-series script.