Diabetes Health Equity Fund

About Diabetes Health Equity Fund

Diabetes is a chronic condition associated with abnormally high levels of sugar in the blood. Most of the food we eat is broken down into sugar and released into the bloodstream. When blood sugar goes up, it signals the pancreas to release insulin. Insulin helps sugar from food get into cells to be used for energy.

With diabetes, the body either doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use the insulin well. If there is too little insulin or cells stop responding to insulin, too much blood sugar stays in the bloodstream. Over time, that can cause serious health problems, such as heart disease, vision loss, and kidney disease.

The two main types of Diabetes are Type 1 diabetes and Type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes occurs when the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the beta cells in the pancreas that make insulin or impairs the body’s ability to produce enough insulin. Type 1 diabetes is not a childhood disease, it occurs at any age, most often by early adulthood, in people of every race, shape or size, and has no known cure. Type 1 diabetes is also referred to as juvenile diabetes or insulin dependent diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes affects the way your body metabolizes sugar and is the most common type of diabetes mellitus. With type 2 diabetes, the beta cells of the pancreas produce insulin, but the body is unable regulate the movement of sugar into the cells, this is known as insulin resistance or may occur when the pancreas is not able to produce enough insulin to maintain normal glucose levels. Type 2 diabetes can develop at any age but is most often diagnosed in middle-aged or older people. Type 2 diabetes is also known as insulin-resistant diabetes, non-insulin dependent diabetes and adult onset diabetes.

Our Health Equity Funds were developed to get assistance to those people and places who need it the most. Developed using the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and CDC Disease Incidence data, our Health Equity Funds serve people living in 220 counties across the United States that have been identified by the CDC as having the highest social vulnerability scores and are burdened with high rates of chronic diseases. The Health Equity Funds are designed to specifically provide support to eligible patients living in one of the 220 counties covered by the funds, which is verified using the zip code of the patient’s home address. All other eligibility requirements, and fund operation, are the same as our general funds.