Helping Houston's Diverse Communities: Christin Carr
Dec 2, 2019, 16:28 PM
At AADE19 in August, the AADE Education and Research Foundation provided scholarships to ten local diabetes care and education specialists who work with underserved or at-risk populations. This week, our blogs highlight some recipients, their takeaways from the conference and their plans to implement that knowledge. Donate today to the AADE Foundation, so that it may continue to support projects, communities and individuals like those featured below.
Christin Carr is an active member of the AADE Houston Local Networking Group (LNG), helping the group with event planning, fundraising and organizing continuing education. It is how she learned about the AADE Foundation scholarship available to diabetes care and education specialists who are interested in better serving vulnerable populations.
Christin made the most of her AADE Foundation scholarship by attending several AADE19 sessions that focus on the unique populations she serves. A highlight of the conference for her was the many sessions discussing how diabetes care and education specialists can better support African Americans with diabetes using innovative strategies that include new tools like social media.
The valuable knowledge, tools and resources that Christin has picked up at the conference can be implemented quickly in her practice. She illustrates this point by giving an example of a conference session on physical activity that gave her a better understanding of the role heart rate targets play in exercise. She learned that the first 20 minutes of exercise primarily burn glucose, not fat, which will allow her to better inform her clients on how to optimize outcomes in their own exercise regimens. She says “Knowing that, I can now make better recommendations for the management of glucose or cholesterol to the people with diabetes in my practice.”
Other practice pearls she can’t wait to use include using social media to reach African American populations who have type 1 diabetes, addressing cultural barriers and overcoming shame to promote positive health outcomes and monitoring conversations on social media to gain insights to the mental health struggles of people with diabetes. She even met some exhibitors at the conference with products that will support her work promoting weight loss.
For #GivingTuesday this year, please make a donation to the AADE Education and Research Foundation so that the foundation may continue to support the work of diabetes care and education specialists like Christin.