Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Lana Kunik

In this captivating episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm, delve into the world of expert insights as Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm engages in a thought-provoking and informative discussion with Lana Kunik, Director of the National PA Center for Diabetes Prevention and Education, a program of the Sight Center of NWPA. 

Lana shares her journey into diabetes prevention, emphasizing the importance of lifestyle changes and the National Diabetes Prevention Program's 12-month curriculum. She highlights strategies like food tracking, stress management, community support, and the shift to hybrid models post-COVID-19 to address type 2 diabetes, especially in rural communities. 

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, reach out to us on our website. 

Publication number QI-022825-GK

Transcript

Welcome to "Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights," the podcast that delves into the captivating intersection of innovation, science, compassion, and care. 

In each episode, Quality Insights’ Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm will have the privilege of engaging with leading experts across diverse fields, including dieticians, pharmacists, and brave patients navigating their own healthcare journeys. 

Our mission is to bring you the best healthcare insights, drawing from the expertise of professionals across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the nation.

Subscribe now, and together, we can take healthcare by storm.

 Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Taking Health Care by Storm. I am Dr. Jean Storm, the Medical Director at Quality Insights, and today I am delighted to be joined by Lana Kunik. She is the Director of the Pennsylvania Center for Diabetes Prevention and Education. She is a Certified Life Coach and National Diabetes Prevention program, super trainer and a community health worker.

So very important right now. We know diabetes is a huge challenge across the country. And for more than 13 years, Lana has developed, devoted her professional life to the battle against reversible prediabetes and preventable type two diabetes. Many people don't know. That we can prevent diabetes as a community health worker.

You may know her from various roles as director of the Pennsylvania Center for Diabetes Prevention and Education at the CITE Center of Northwest Pennsylvania. Alana received her life coach and master trainer certifications through the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health Diabetes Prevention Support Center.

Lonnie uses her unique expertise to mentor other health workers that desire to provide the national diabetes prevention program across the country. She is also an adjunct health education prevents professor at Mercyhurst University. University. Lana resides in Erie, Pennsylvania. We were just chatting not too far from where I am in Northeast Pennsylvania.

She lives with her family. She enjoys connecting with close friends as well as expanding her knowledge in the fields of nutrition, fitness, and holistic health. Lana, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for that introduction. I'm, this is my first podcast, so I'm, I'm excited to, um, hopefully knock this one out of the park and talk about a topic that I'm very passionate about.

It's easy when you're passionate about something. So agreed. Can you start by telling us a bit about your background and how you became involved in diabetes prevention and community health work? Sure. Um, I guess I'll start. Really where the seed was planted with diabetes prevention and it's I grew up in a very rural community where health disparities They were evident and resources were greatly lacking and I became acutely aware of the struggles faced by people dealing with chronic disease Particularly type 2 diabetes.

I saw it Within my own home with a grandfather who was insulin dependent. Um, the education and awareness for diabetes just really wasn't there. It was really to the point where, you know, back 40 years ago, it was like, Oh, I just have a touch of sugar. I, you know, some extra, you know, cookies, so I'm just going to give myself some more insulin.

And really what it did was it, it took my grandfather's life much sooner than it should have been taken. So that was really the first seed that was planted. Like, hey, you know, there has to be something that can be done. And then it just goes down the line. My mother has type 2 diabetes. My stepfather, my brother in law.

So we really have a lot of diabetes in our family. Um, luckily, I'll go back and say, my mother, if she listens to this podcast, she will want me to say this, um, she has controlled her type 2 diabetes through lifestyle change intervention, so yay, I'm very, I'm very happy for her. Um, so being in this rural community and seeing that, you know, If people don't know, like you had said in the introduction, that type 2 is common, but it's not inevitable.

So when I, when I started realizing that, hey, there, there are interventions out there for the controllable things that we can change that can help prevent this chronic disease that, that can shorten your life and can take away some of your quality of life, it really just struck a nerve in me, and it made me want to dig deeper.

Um, and it made me really want to connect with those who need it most. So here at the site center of Northwest Pennsylvania, we do serve in nine different counties with a, with a focus on getting into those rural counties where maybe those, those resources are lacking. So I guess that's what I would say would just seeing seeing the people in my life struggle because they weren't aware that there was another option other than rather than medicine was something that made me really want to do a deep dive into the diabetes prevention arena.

Yeah, and I think thinking about the rural communities is really important. So you're the director of the Pennsylvania Center for Diabetes Prevention and Education. Could you explain the role of the center and how it supports individuals with diabetes prevention? Sure, so I'll start with the Sight Center of Northwest Pennsylvania is where the program is housed, where this Lifestyle Intervention Program is housed.

And our mission is to prevent blindness and promote independence for those with vision loss and those who are blind. So some people listening may know or you may not know, diabetes is the leading cause of vision loss in the United States amongst working aged individuals. So I brought the National Diabetes Prevention Program to the Sight Center to fall under that prevention of blindness bucket.

So, we are here with this evidence based program preventing the leading cause of blindness, which is type 2 diabetes. That's so very important. I don't think people realize, you know, when they think about diabetes, it's almost like a little bit of a silent killer, but Um, yeah, like the, I, and I will say, I'm, I'm not sure I really even knew, I know about like kidney disease and, and problems, you know, people think about issues with their feet, but you know, when it has to do with people's sight, that's, that's really, that's huge.

So the national, yeah, absolutely. The National Diabetes Prevention Program that you lead is part of the CDC's Diabetes Prevention Program. So it's, it's a national program with the CDC. Can you walk through what participants can expect during this 12 month program? Sure. First of all, there's many different ways that someone can, can join the program.

It can be a self referral. So we have, I, you know, I'm not the only one here that's, responsible for the success of this program. We have 15 certified lifestyle coaches. I have a marketing and outreach director that goes out to all the physicians and practitioners in the nine counties we serve and we educate our physicians.

So someone might be in a doctor's office, Look at a flyer on the wall that says, Hey, you know, are you at risk for type 2 diabetes? The eligibility requirements will be under there. And they can call the number and say, Hey, we're interested in learning more about your program. They can also be referred by a physician or by a practitioner.

So that's the first step. Just get them to us or get them to a national diabetes prevention program. And I'm glad that you mentioned it's 12 months because I will tell you, that's probably the biggest pushback that we get from our potential participants that enroll in the program is they say, 12 months, I don't know if I'm willing to commit that type of time, basically to myself and to my health.

But what we try to explain to them is what this program is trying to do is we're trying to reverse it. Life long lifestyle habits. So maybe things that were maybe eating habits that were developed in childhood that there's not, there's no way that maybe two or three sessions working with a certified lifestyle coach that we would be able to reverse those behaviors.

So that's the first thing they're referred to the program. They come into a information 12 months. In those 12 months, we go three months weekly sessions. Right now, the site centers program is about 95 percent in person programming. So we, we meet in small groups of 12 to 15 participants working with certified lifestyle coaches on their lifestyle change goals, which I'll go into a little bit later.

Um, the 5 percent that, that are hybrid, we definitely make a, make a, an effort to Offer that online option. So if somebody can't be here in person, we do hybrid. So we'll have an in person class with say a zoom or a teams running so that they can participate in the class. in a different area. But we have noticed in these nine counties that we serve, there's just a really big desire to be in person, which I love and all of our coaches love, because we're seeing some really great health outcomes with that network of support that they're receiving from that in person programming.

Each class in those three months, it's called our core classes. They're one hour sessions, there's a private weigh in just so we can get a feel for where that participant's at with their, their, um, starting body weight. And then every class is a new topic covered. So just to make it clear to all, anyone listening, The topics that we're covering, that wasn't, you know, created by me or the Sight Center in Northwest Pennsylvania.

This is an evidence based curriculum that every single Lifestyle Coaches uses. There's different curriculums, but it's all with the same common goal. And it's all Center for Disease Control and Prevention approved curriculum. So for three months, we're meeting weekly and then we go to our biweekly. It's our transitional phase where the participant goes a couple weeks without seeing their coach.

And what we're doing there is making sure that they're able to go a week or two in between classes and still say it, stay on track, not having that weekly accountability to their coach and their class. And then the last six months of programming are our, our core, our post core phase. And that's where we meet once a month.

So they're once a month. Check ins. We still give them new curriculum that they're learning new topics that we're covering and still doing those private weigh ins. And that's just to make sure that their roots are strong. Their roots of lifestyle change are strong and they're able to go three to four weeks without meeting with their class without falling way off track or maybe reverting back to those those behaviors that they had before that weren't serving them well.

That cadence really makes sense to me. I love that it's in person. So the National Diabetes Program emphasizes lifestyle changes that we know work, such as diet and exercise. What are some of the key strategies that participants use to reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes? This is why I love the program because the strategies are not And I think that's why the program is so successful.

So I'll start off with one strategy. Maybe anyone listening or you yourself have done this, but food tracking. So when they come into the program, the number one tool we give them is the the ability and the understanding of how to track their food intake. And I'll tell you this, you, either the participant loves food tracking or they hate food tracking, but regardless, it's a successful tool.

So when they come in, we have them tracking their food just on a, on a little, you know, graph piece of paper. And what that does is it gives them a baseline of where they're at. Like, wow, here's some things we hear like, wow, I really don't. I don't ever eat any vegetables or I haven't drank water since the last time I took an Advil.

I mean, these are, these are really, this tracking tool is for them to realize like, Hey, I need to, you know, interject some fruits and veggies into my diet. I ate for breakfast a granola bar with zero protein in it. Um, and that is something we do really work on them with is making sure they're, Getting their protein, fruits and vegetables.

So tracking is a strategy that I think in the beginning of the program is the number one tool that really gets that ball rolling on making those changes. Then we do label reading. When we get into our label reading, we act as if every single person in that room has no idea how to read a label. So we start really grassroots and we teach them, excuse me, you know, what a serving size is.

And we'll say things like, you do know when you go to the convenience store and you get a bag of chips. and you eat the whole bag and it says it's 200 calories, you have to check that serving size because sometimes it's two or three calories. And I will tell you what, I mean, we've had so many people in the class that it was like the emoji on the phone with like the little head that's exploding, like, whoa, you know, serving size really makes a difference.

So we start grassroots with our label reading, teach them how to Find out how many calories is in a serving, fat, carbohydrates, sodium, all of that. That's really an eye opening tool as well. We have them track their physical activity minutes. So that's for them to say, Hey, I need to get moving. I need to work towards my 10, 000 steps.

I need to break up bouts of sitting. Because sitting is the new smoking, right? That's what we're, we're hearing everywhere. So that's another accountability that they set for themselves. They're given a fat and calorie goal to stay within. And we help them do that through tracking and through our certified coaches going over their food journals with them and helping them decide, okay, you know, you're going over your calories every day.

What foods could we take out? Okay, we're not going to take out the chicken breast. We're not going to take out the broccoli, but we do see that you drink two Cokes a day. Let's try cutting back on one coke. Just very small sustainable lifestyle changes that we're trying to implement into this program.

And then another big one is managing stress. So the curriculum has a nice large section on figuring out what causes stress, how do we feel when we feel stressed, and what behaviors do we turn to when we're stressed. So is it we sleep more, we watch more TV, we snack more at night. So we really help them identify.

What, what their triggers are to stress them, that stress them out, and then also identify what maybe non helpful behaviors they turn to. And then secondly, we work with them on what could we replace that help, that non helpful behavior with that could be a helpful lifestyle change. So those are some of the really important strategies that we use to help them reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Those are some great tips, and I hope those are useful to our listeners out there. So how do you support participants who may struggle with setbacks or challenges in reaching their weight loss and health goals throughout the program? That is a good question. Um, on the, the very first session of this program, anyone who enrolls in the program, we require them to attend something called a session zero, and that's a one hour information session.

And in that session, I've made it a habit to at the beginning of the class, I'll ask everybody who here in this class has gained a lot of weight, lost the weight and then gained it back and more than half of the room always throws their hand up. And when I followed up with what do you think the reason for that is, it's lack of motivation and lack of support.

So we took that, you know, I took that back to my team. How can we keep them motivated? How can we keep them supported? And one of the ways we decided we could do that is Constant communication. So when they move into that, maybe monthly phase where they're not meeting with us every week, we send out weekly motivational text messages.

We created an online support group that they're all able to post recipes on, share ideas on all of our coaches do the same. We'll, you know, post our, our breakfast and we'll break it down. You know, this is what we ate. This is how much protein is it or isn't it. Let's see what you ate. So it's really just keeping them.

On track and keeping them seen and heard so they know that they're not alone because unfortunately a lot of our our clients that we work with They don't have a support person. They are their support person and when they graduate this program We want them to know yes We're your coach and we're here to support you, but you have to support yourself because at the end of the day Right.

We are the the person that's responsible for our behavior. So we really do try and get them posting on that page themselves and so that they feel that they're inspiring others on that page. Um, and then also we try to catch them doing things right. So no matter what our age is and what topic we're covering, when someone catches you doing something right, it kind of It boosts that thing in your brain that makes that thing in your brain say, Hey, I want to keep doing that.

So all of the coaches know when we're in this program, we're not the mother. We're not the boss. We're not the dictator. We catch our participants doing things right. And we ignore their slip ups. And what that does is that teaches them to motivate themselves. So I would say all of those things combined are ways that we help them learn how, if they fall off track, if they have a setback, sure they have us in our online.

community, but they themselves have the tools they need to pick themselves up and keep moving forward. Yeah, that's great. That's so wonderful. Such a wonderful environment to create. So as a certified life coach and a National Diabetes Prevention Program Master Trainer, what skills or tools do you feel are valuable when helping participants stay motivated and on track?

I think I could refer back to a couple things I shared in the last response that I had for you, but the motivational interviewing, because a lot of, you know, I will say this is not a A diet. Weight loss program. Weight loss is just one of the, the goals of the program because of the evidence behind it, that losing 7 percent of your body weight can prevent diabetes, but we, but we are really motivation.

Practicing motivational interviewing, so that these individuals that enroll in this program, they know why they're there. So, you're not here to get a smaller size jeans, right? You're not in a chronic disease prevention program, a diabetes prevention program, to fit into a dress to go to your daughter's wedding.

You're here to live longer, to live a higher quality of life, to be able to bend down and pick your grandkids up. You're here to prevent chronic disease, to prevent your Self from losing vision. So we really try toe. Always make sure they're focused on the long term because those shirt short term goals.

They come and go. So our job is their coaches as a master trainer. My job train. My coaches to do is to always bring them back to quality of life because No matter if you're 30 years old and you're in the program or you're 85 years old, quality of life is extremely important. So when someone says, well, I hit my, I hit my goal, my whatever, if they have a, a number goal in mind, a scale goal.

We'll say, well, that's wonderful. When you hit your goal, you don't go through a, um, A ribbon, like at the end of the race and you break the ribbon and it's over, you continue on. And the only thing that's going to keep you putting one foot in front of the other is if you have that long term goal of living longer, living healthier, traveling with your family, whatever it is.

So I would say the motivational interviewing and then also keeping things in perspective, that this isn't about outward appearance, this is about your inward health, your health outcomes, and your quality of life. Yeah, motivational interviewing I'll say is such an important tool in so many areas. So yeah, I, I would agree.

So can you share any success stories or examples of individuals who have made significant progress through this lifestyle change program? Oh my goodness. Yes. I mean, and this is, and really why I've done this for 13 years are because of these successes and these outcomes. Um, we'll go for some big ones, some ones that really.

Make me aware of why this program is at the site center, and that's improved vision. We've had people who have prisms in their glasses, right, to help with muscle imbalances. Um, some muscle imbalances can be caused by uncontrolled blood glucose levels or blood sugars. We've had people in the program with prisms.

That we're able to, well, their optometrist was able to remove the prisms because their blood sugars are under control. We've had people that came into the program and said, listen, I have prediabetes. I'm, I have a bad knee. My physician told me that, my surgeon told me that they will not do knee surgery unless I'm able to meet my needs.

health and wellness goals. So by going through the program, learning how to fuel their bodies, moving their bodies more, they were able to lose the percentage of weight they needed in order to get their knee fix so that their quality of life could be improved. Um, people that come in on pre diabetes on metformin, which is a drug used to control blood sugars.

They come in on metformin, they lose that five to seven. Um, percent weight loss that is required from the program, and they're taken completely off metformin, off blood pressure medication, off of cholesterol medication. Um, I most recently had a woman who, she wasn't one of my direct clients, but one of our coaches who, um, had not been able to fly on a plane in years, and her daughter lived in a different state, and her goal was to be able to, through healthy eating and moving her body, be able to.

Get on a plane and fly and through the 12 month program, the 12 month lifestyle intervention. She was able to do that So it's just every day. My coaches are reporting back. Physicians are reporting back to us these wonderful health outcomes All because of this lifestyle intervention program that helps people control what they can which is what they eat and how much they move their body It's really incredible Yeah, so inspiring.

So I am a huge fan of community health workers. I've had community health workers on the podcast previously. So what has been the most rewarding part of your work as a community health worker, especially in relations to diabetes prevention and education? Letting people know they have a choice. So, the awareness piece of community health work, um, going out into the rural communities, going to a rural senior center where there's maybe 25, 75 to 85 year old, um, men and women in the senior center and go in and tell them that, you know, there's still, there's hope, right?

Because a lot of them have already, once they're 75 or 85, they may have crossed over to type 2 diabetes. But that doesn't mean that they have to feel. bad. So to go in and tell a 75 year old, you know, this study that I'm speaking of, this National Diabetes Prevention Program, this study proved that people over the age of 60 were even more successful at controlling their blood sugars.

I mean, that is, um, very inspiring to see their eyes light up and say, wait, Because I'm 75, that doesn't mean that I have to just forget everything, just keep, obviously continue taking their medicine, but just keep upping my medication. No, there's things you can do. Go for a little walk. You know, make sure that at breakfast, you're not just eating a small thing of oatmeal, make sure you're getting your vegetables and your protein.

So I would say awareness and the education piece and hope, bringing hope to people, letting people know that sure, You're at risk for pre diabetes, there's uncontrollable factors. So your age, people, you know, over the age of, every age over 45, you're at higher risk. Your gender, a male is at higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

Your ethnicity and your family history, right? Those are the non controllables. But what I love to do as a community health worker is go out and say, Fine, those are the non controllables, nothing you can do about it, but I'm going to give you the tools you need, you, you can utilize to control it, which is let's get our exercise on point and let's get our nutrition on point.

So I would say that that is, that's been the most rewarding, rewarding thing for me. Yeah, empowering people is just an amazing, it's amazing feeling. I don't think you can put it, you know, you can try and put it into words, but it's almost like beyond words, I will say. So how did the COVID 19 pandemic impact the delivery of the diabetes prevention program?

Were there any specific challenges in continuing education during that time? And I assume that it was, um, probably virtual or hybrid. And so what lessons have you learned about delivering health programs virtually or in a hybrid model? I hate to think back to those times. A lot of good did come out of, out of it.

And I will tell you this program, not just here at the site center, but across the country was greatly impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic because All the programming was in person at that point. So what we had to do is we really had to switch gears. You know, we're working from home. We have all these clients, hundreds of clients that are dependent on us.

They're enrolled in these programs. They're working towards their goals and then lights out, right there. What are we going to do? So we did transition to all virtual via, you know, an online platform. I will tell you, we lost about 80 percent of our participants, right? Because at that time, people weren't used to that.

They weren't used to logging on and doing a class online. So we, we did lose a big chunk of our participants, which was very, very, um, disappointing, but fast forward now to 2025, first of all, when the pandemic, when the. Restrictions lifted and we were able to come back into or come back in person. We were able to outreach to all of those participants we lost and give them the option to return to in person.

And then we also became more familiar with how to successfully implement an online program. But I will tell you here in Pennsylvania, in the nine counties that we offer this program in, we haven't had a online huge, um, outreach for online delivery or, you know, synchronous or asynchronous delivery. But I do know I've worked with national diabetes prevention programs across the country.

There are states that are thriving with that distance learning. They're able to bill insurance through, um, the synchronous Distance learning, which I don't think, I don't feel like that ever would have came into fruition if it were not for the COVID 19 pandemic. So now we're able to even reach more people, people who maybe are homebound, they can't get out of the house.

Now we're able to not only serve them, help them to prevent diabetes, but we're able to do that and keep our programs sustainable because we are able to bill. So I would say, you know. Yes, the first those two years were rough. Our enrollment was down immensely. But the fact that we are able to do the telehealth, the telemedicine, go that route, I think that that has been very beneficial, especially for my priority population, which is the 65 plus in the rural population.

Yeah. The silver lining. You have to look for the silver lining. So we talked a little, you talked a little bit about this earlier that the National Diabetes Prevention Program doesn't only focus on weight loss, but also on coping with stress. Something I don't think a lot of people think about with diabetes and weight loss.

So how important are mental health and emotional wellbeing in the prevention of type two diabetes? I mean, I think it is mental health and emotional well being are probably, in my opinion, could be two of the top reasons that someone doesn't enroll in a prevention program or enrolls and are not retained.

And I totally get it. I understand, you know, if it's not that holistic, you know, that holistic health where You know, someone, you're trying to get someone to enroll into a lifestyle intervention program that's a 12 month program, but they're struggling with, say, mental health or their emotional well being, sure, you can plant seeds and they can make changes, but, you know, if somebody is basically in survival mode, learning to up their protein and getting their 10, 000 steps in might not be top of the list, right?

So I definitely think that it does play a huge role. Um, and here at. At the site center. I really think nationally. We're really trying to figure out how can we make it work, right? So how some of the ways that we've done it here and we're working towards, you know, being even better with it as we become a referral hub.

So when our clients come into the program, they're, they're given an assessment or some of them maybe just might come to their health coach or to their lifestyle coach and say, Hey, this is what I'm struggling in. And we have a slew of resources. So we have second harvest food banks. We have, um, therapists, counselors, uh, Women shelters.

So we have joined forces with a lot of our community resources so that when someone comes here, we're not just focusing on preventing diabetes. We have the next steps for whatever they share with us that they need. So that's, that's really our first step and trying to make sure that someone who Is struggling with mental health or is struggling with their emotional well being that we don't just say, Hey, we focus in one area.

It's Hey, this is our focus, but let us connect you with someone that might be able to help you better. Yeah, I think it's, you know, treating the whole person is very important. So looking ahead, what do you see as the next steps in the fight against diabetes prevention and healthcare? And how can healthcare providers, community health workers, and individuals contribute to this effort?

Well, that is a great question. That question, like, every time I think of this question or somebody asks me this, I always, I come back to, we know diabetes is a significant global health challenge. It affects millions of people, puts substantial burden on healthcare systems. The fight against this chronic disease requires what I always think of, it's a collaborative effort, that collective impact.

So just the little, you know, Lana Koenig's lifestyle change program at the site center. It's not enough. So we really need to incorporate our healthcare providers into this collective impact model. So, not just physicians, but practitioners, that's, you know, dieticians, nurses, optometrists, anyone who has personal touches with someone.

And has kind of that respected role as a practitioner or physician, what we need for them is screening and diagnosis. So screen them for pre diabetes. Do that 60 seconds pre diabetes survey. It takes one minute and what you can do is plant a seed that says to someone, Hey. I might be at risk for diabetes and then as that practitioner or physician, screen them, but then also give them a referral, give them a way to connect with the lifestyle change program so that they have the opportunity to prevent a chronic disease that is extremely complex and has severe, can have severe complications.

Um, community health workers, in my opinion, play a vital role in that collective impact model. Um, Those health workers, they serve as links between the health care providers and the community, the outreach and education, so they're always out there, they're at every outreach event, um, they can also spread awareness by giving that risk assessment and giving people that, like you said, that power, that power and knowledge that they're, they are at risk but there's something they can do, um, and also we use our community health workers as, for the cultural competency, so they can bring that cultural awareness to the health care, Systems and they can assure that the interventions that that person receives is culturally sensitive.

And then lastly, so we have our practitioners, we have our community health workers, but as a part of the collective impact, we really need to focus on the individual. So individuals when. When they learn of their risk, take the next step, go to their physician, ask to be tested for diabetes, um, call a lifestyle intervention program, see what it's all about, um, and then if all the stars align, enroll in that program and work towards those goals to prevent diabetes.

get their regular checkups. We need the people to get checkups. We need our communities to go to the doctor and get their preventative care, get their blood glucose readings, but also know their numbers. So if, if they have pre diabetes, sometimes a physician might not say anything, but if that community health worker grabbed them at an outreach event and said, Hey, here's what pre diabetes is.

Here's your numbers. If, if your A1C is a 5. 7 to a 6. 4, You're, you have prediabetes, but you can reverse that, that is when the real change can happen. And then also be an advocate. The people can be an advocate for people for diabetes awareness. They can support policies that promote healthy environments, um, and also provide healthy food options.

You know, if, if they're with groups of people, instead of everywhere they go, they're bringing pop and junk food to kids events. Maybe try and collectively as a community start serving the children. Healthier foods and then in return have healthier foods in your home. So it's not a one and done. It's really a whole Community, but really a whole country.

We need to come together and realize that pre diabetes is a Diagnosis it can it can be reversed so you can bring pre diabetes back down into the normal range and people have to know And that's our job as community health workers, too If you have prediabetes and you don't make any lifestyle changes, you don't lose that five to seven percent of your body weight, you don't increase your movement, within five years, you will likely tick over into that type two diabetes range.

And then, you know, that's when you're You know, insurance gets involved. Medication gets involved. So we really have to make sure that we're educating the people that there is something they can do and that they do have power. Yeah. I love that message. That made me so happy. A lot of Koenig. Thank you so much for joining us today.

I feel better that the world has people like you in it and in fighting the good fight for chronic disease. If individuals want to find out more, um, about the program, um, is there a website that they can go to? Sure. There's um, a website, it is www. type2couldbeyou. org or anyone is welcome to call directly to our office.

It's 814 455 0995 and you could ask for Lana Kunik and I would be happy to walk anybody through any questions they had about either referring to the program or enrolling in the program. Wonderful. And we have a link, both of those in the podcast description. Lana, again, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me. You have a wonderful day. 

Thank you for tuning in to Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you found value in what you heard, please consider subscribing to our podcast on your favorite platform.

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