Diabetes Care Programs

Diabetes Prevention Program

Since 2007, the Fair Haven Community Health Care’s Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) has offered 1-hour healthy lifestyle class once per week for participants in the 16-week Intensive Lifestyle Intervention. The healthy lifestyle program curriculum is based on the National Institutes of Health’s Diabetes Prevention Program curriculum, amended by the University of Pittsburgh to fit larger groups, and further translated to fit Fair Haven’s particularly predominant Latino population. Classes are taught by Fair Haven DPP clinicians and are delivered in both English and Spanish. Bilingual presentations and handouts guide the learning for each session, while facilitators address the diverse needs and experiences of the participants.

Cooking demonstrations and discussions are an experiential learning component of each class, and foods prepared each week reflect the ripe produce harvested that week from the program’s garden. Between 15-20 adults attend classes on a weekly basis, and often that same group stays the next hour for a professional trainer-led exercise class. Children attend their own exercise classes during the adult nutrition and exercise classes, while infants and toddlers attend onsite childcare. Aligned with the notion that diabetes is a family-oriented disease, when one patient is invited to attend nutrition classes, the DPP staff invites members of the patient’s family to attend as well.

Bright Bodies

Bright Bodies is a weight management program for children ages 7 to 16 that involves nutrition education, behavior modification and exercise in a family setting. Children and their families attend class once a week and exercise three times a week. This program is run in conjunction with the Diabetes Prevention Program as the clinic works to combat obesity and diabetes with lifestyle changes for entire families.

For more information, visit the Bright Bodies website. You can also learn more about the Bright Bodies curriculum here.

Proud GRADE Study Participant (2013-2021)

Fair Haven Community Health Care is a proud past participant in the GRADE Study and was unique as the only FQHC in the U.S. awarded this important study grant. From 2013-2021, along with our study partners at the Yale School of Medicine, 156 enrolled participants were followed with regular diabetes care visits. Diabetes medications, laboratory tests, diabetes education, and diabetes supplies were provided at no cost for the duration of the study. Over the 7 years, the study enrolled more than 5,047 participants nationally.

The Glycemic Reduction Approaches in Diabetes: A Comparative Effectiveness Study (GRADE Study) was a randomized clinical trial of participants diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within the past 10 years. Participants are randomly assigned to 1 of 4 commonly used glucose-lowering drugs, plus metformin, and are followed for up to 7 years. The goal of the GRADE Study was to evaluate which of the treatments for type 2 diabetes are best for different groups (by gender, race, and ethnicity) of patients.

Type 2 diabetes is an epidemic that threatens to become the century’s major public health problem and poses enormous human and economic challenges worldwide.  An important challenge is to determine which of the many possible drugs is the best choice among people already treated with metformin, the most commonly used diabetes drug. To answer this question, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with 45 clinical sites in the United States, conducted a major 7 year study to determine the best combination drug treatment for type 2 diabetes.