Daniel Elias Zoughbie Humanities
The Diabetes Micro-Clinic Project: Community Awareness and Ownership in the Developing World
During a recent stay in the West Bank, Daniel identified a staggering diabetes problem with serious gaps in treatment delivery and diabetes education. Consequently, he intends to establish and document approximately twenty micro-clinics composed of small groups of Palestinian diabetics meeting in designated houses or businesses for the purpose of diabetes education, screening, treatment, and monitoring. The main innovation is that each micro-clinic will share the prohibitive cost of maintaining a glucose monitoring device — an instrument readily available in the U.S. but rarely used in underdeveloped areas. This will provide a first line of defense against the lethal complications of diabetes through shared access to frequent testing. Also using lectures, workshops, and group activities, the diabetes micro-clinics will be vehicles of empowerment, utilizing community support and creating public ownership so that the affected population can move toward improving health care.
