Diabetes Awareness Month

Diabetes Awareness Month focuses on increasing public understanding of diabetes, promoting prevention of type 2 diabetes, encouraging early diagnosis, and supporting people living with diabetes. The observance highlights the importance of healthy lifestyles, equitable access to care, self-management, and reducing the long-term complications associated with the disease.

Early Action on Diabetes emphasizes recognizing diabetes risk and symptoms, seeking appropriate testing, and connecting people with effective care before preventable complications develop.

The campaign highlights three interconnected actions:

• Recognize early: Improve awareness of diabetes symptoms and risk factors.
• Act early: Encourage appropriate testing, timely diagnosis, and early intervention.
• Sustain care: Ensure access to affordable medicines, monitoring, education, and ongoing support.

Early action also involves addressing the wider conditions that influence diabetes risk, including access to healthy food, opportunities for physical activity, and accessible primary healthcare.

• Raise awareness of diabetes symptoms: Promote recognition of increased thirst, frequent urination, unexplained weight loss, fatigue, and blurred vision.
• Encourage early testing: Help people understand when to seek professional assessment and diabetes testing.
• Promote type 2 diabetes risk reduction: Highlight practical, sustainable lifestyle measures and opportunities for preventive intervention.
• Improve recognition of type 1 diabetes: Emphasize that type 1 diabetes can develop at any age and may require urgent treatment.
• Improve access to care: Advocate for affordable testing, insulin, other essential medicines, glucose-monitoring supplies, and qualified healthcare professionals.
• Prevent complications: Encourage appropriate management of blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol, alongside recommended screening for complications.
• Challenge stigma and misinformation: Promote accurate information and respectful communication without blaming people for having diabetes.
• Support people living with diabetes: Recognize the daily demands of treatment, self-management, and emotional well-being.
• Strengthen community awareness: Engage families, workplaces, schools, community organizations, and healthcare systems.
• Address inequalities: Advocate for diabetes prevention and care that reach underserved populations.

• Diabetes mellitus
• Type 1 diabetes
• Type 2 diabetes
• Gestational diabetes
• Prediabetes
• Blood glucose
• Hyperglycemia
• Insulin
• Insulin resistance
• Diabetes risk factors
• Diabetes symptoms
• Early diagnosis
• Diabetes screening
• HbA1c
• Fasting blood glucose
• Oral glucose tolerance test
• Diabetes prevention
• Lifestyle modification
• Healthy eating
• Physical activity
• Weight management
• Blood pressure
• Cholesterol
• Continuous glucose monitoring
• Diabetes self-management
• Diabetes education
• Medication adherence
• Diabetic ketoacidosis
• Hypoglycemia
• Diabetic retinopathy
• Diabetic kidney disease
• Diabetic neuropathy
• Cardiovascular disease
• Foot care
• Access to insulin
• Health equity
• Diabetes stigma