Temerty Faculty of Medicine
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Foundational Research Program

The Network’s foundational research program aims to understand diabetes risk and burden in the region. Future work will aim to identify priorities and unmet needs for diabetes prevention and care, prioritizing the development of co-designed research projects. We will also aim to explore additional data sources to measure and examine the risk factors of diabetes risk through health, administrative, survey, and environmental data sources at the local and regional level.

To orient our research program, the Network developed a comprehensive, multisectoral framework which aims to identify factors impacting diabetes and identify potential challenges and opportunities for interventions at three levels.

A layered diagram shows three levels of health intervention: Macro (outer) focuses on creating healthy environments with policymakers and urban planners; Meso (middle) promotes healthy behaviors in communities, workplaces, and schools; Micro (inner) improves cardiometabolic care within the healthcare system. Solutions flow like a river, connecting policies, community actions, and personal skills.
utm campus

Macro

This level targets factors that affect the entire population and examines the role of environmental determinants of cardiometabolic diseases related to how we design and build our neighbourhoods. Interventions targeting the macro level may include municipal and regional policies and urban planning to optimize the built environment and improve access to nutritious foods, physical activity, and housing to create healthy environments.

gardening

Meso

This level focuses on groups disproportionally affected by diabetes and addresses how to promote healthy living and behaviours through specific sociocultural co-designed interventions. These interventions may involve strengthening and enhancing community action and mobilization by designing and implementing prevention programs across various settings and contexts to raise awareness and promote healthy living and behaviours.

closeup of a doctor

Micro

This level addresses individuals with or at risk of developing diabetes and related cardiometabolic diseases within the healthcare system and examines how access and quality of cardiometabolic disease healthcare can impact potential health outcomes and quality of life. Interventions may focus on patients and families, healthcare providers and administrators to improve cardiometabolic disease care by making health services more coordinated, effective, accessible, and equitable.