Community co-design to target diabetes and metabolic syndrome in Australian Indigenous peoples

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic health condition in Australia, and disproportionately affects Australian Indigenous communities. Metabolic syndrome includes conditions such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, abdominal obesity and insulin resistance, and is responsible for earlier and more severe complications in individuals diagnosed with diabetes.

Diabetes mellitus contributes to 11% of all deaths in Australia, and costs the healthcare system (AUD)$2.7 million annually. Australian Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected, with prevalence rates three times greater, hospitalization rates four times higher, and death due to complications five times more likely than in non-Indigenous Australians. Over the past four decades, strategies to address diabetes have accepted that it is an inevitably progressive condition, with treatment aiming to slow progression and prevent harmful complications...