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What Is the Driving Out Diabetes Initiative?

Driving Out Diabetes aims to prevent individuals and their families from suffering under the burden of diabetes. Through programs in community outreach and education, innovations in clinical care, and pioneering research, we seek to achieve a diabetes-free Utah. Driving Out Diabetes is a Larry H. Miller Family Wellness initiative at University of Utah Health. 

Join Our Fight Against Diabetes

In 2017, U of U Health partnered with the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation to launch this interdisciplinary effort to battle diabetes in the state of Utah. We invite you now to join us in this fight. Now, The Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation challenges the University of Utah and our local community to raise $3 million—which the foundation will generously match.

Your donation will help Driving Out Diabetes continue the work of:

  • Screening Utahns for chronic disease and connecting them to treatment or prevention resources
  • Establishing school programs that teach students to develop and sustain healthy habits
  • Coaching individuals with personalized healthy lifestyle changes and showing them how to make new habits last
  • Funding research in diabetes cures, prevention, and treatments

Driving Out Diabetes in Action

Check out the resources below to help you learn about prediabetes, diabetes, your risk and how you can prevent diabetes. Click around for more information and join our fight to drive out diabetes. 

How Many People Have Diabetes?

Could You Have Prediabetes?

Take the Risk Test

Diabetes is a growing, global epidemic. 30.3 million Americans (or 9.4 percent of the population) have diabetes. Sadly, one out of four people don't even know they have it.

Another 84 million American adults have prediabetes. Of these people, nine out of 10 don't know they are at risk of developing diabetes.

In Utah, nearly 145,000 adults (or 7.5 percent of the population) have been diagnosed with diabetes.

The number of people who have diabetes grows each year in Utah, the US, and around the world. With diabetes rates rising, many experts call it a global epidemic.

Diabetes also has high human and economic costs. Diabetes is the leading cause of preventable blindness. Diabetes is also a leading cause of:

  • heart disease,
  • stroke,
  • kidney failure, and
  • limb amputations.

How Much Does Diabetes Cost the US Health System?

The total cost of diabetes in the US is estimated to be more than $245 billion. Spending on diabetes makes up one out of every five health care dollars spent in the US.

Diabetes is debilitating, costly, and often deadly. However, it can often be prevented.

Leadership

Angie Fagerlin, PhD

Professor & Chair, Department of Population Health Sciences
Research Scientist, Salt Lake City VA Center for Informatics
Decision Enhancement & Surveillance (IDEAS)

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Amy Locke, MD, FAAFP

Professor, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
Executive Director, Resiliency Center
Chief Wellness Officer
University of Utah Health

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Paul Estabrooks

Professor and Associate Dean of Community Engagement, Health & Kinesiology, College of Health, University of Utah

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Jared Rutter, PhD

Distinguished Professor, Department of Biochemistry
Co-Director, Diabetes and Metabolism Research Center Investigator

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Scott Summers, PhD

Professor and Chair, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology
Co-Director, Diabetes and Metabolism Research Center
University of Utah Health

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Corrine Welt, MD

Professor, Department of Internal Medicine
Chief, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism
University of Utah Health

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Contact Us

Emily Kay

Senior Manager, Diabetes Strategic Initiatives
Phone: 801-585-0717
emily.kay@hsc.utah.edu

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