Friday, May 23, 2025
5/23/2025
Special Diabetes Program for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) - Abstract The Wampanoag Tribe consists of 300 tribal members. We are situated on Martha’s Vineyard, a small island off the coast of Massachusetts. The tribe has a diabetes prevalence of 5.5 percent which is an improvement since the first diabetic audit in 2008 which was 9.4 percent, and it is lower than the national average which is 9.3 percent and lower than the Massachusetts average which is 7.4 percent. We believe that this is due to the help received through funding by SDPI. Our tribal members have partaken in the cooking classes, nutritional dinners, nutritional counselling, exercise classes, yoga classes, walking groups , healthy snack classes, and gym classes plus other activities. Those who have participated have lost weight, and brought their cholesterol, A1C, and blood pressures down to more normal numbers. Because of outreach through these programs the tribal members were coming to the clinic more. The Covid pandemic has brought this to a halt and we would like to see these programs resume. This takes much coaxing to participate but we have seen more participation in these programs with resulting improvement in health over time. We have one newly diagnosed diabetic who also has heart disease and we are doing all we can to keep this member educated and participating in all aspects of care. His blood pressure , A1C and cholesterol have improved since his diagnosis, four months ago. We keep a consistent assessment, with education and treatment plan in operation. Our Prediabetic number is 16 and we are reaching out to these members along with all tribal members to prevent future diabetes increase through our teaching programs with the registered dietician, our registered nurse and M.D. Our eGFR>60 percentage of 76, for our diabetics, shows that predisposition for kidney disease has risen from 52 percent in 2008.This is being discussed with our M.D. for initiating and maintaining statin use and other alternatives. Despite this our HDL Cholesterol levels have increased from 40 percent to 80 percent, overweight diabetics has increased from 52 percent to 58 percent, and triglycerides <150 has increased from 41 percent to 46 percent: all improved since start of the SDPI program. Our Health department is met with many challenges due to the limited staff and no close proximity to other health care facilities. Our tribal members are of the working class and have more then one job to survive so getting them to the clinic is difficult at times. Home visits have become a must. We don’t have an acting health director at present and the clinic is manned by a registered nurse who has many jobs including Diabetic Coordinator. We have a consulting physician who is available at all times by phone and is at the clinic once a week for whomever needs care. Despite this, it is a significant outreach to the tribal members for their health care needs. Some tribal members use the clinic only, for all medical advice and examinations before using outside sources. We propose to increase the percent of those with diabetes with documented nutrition education by a Registered Dietitian, Registered Nurse and other providers, decrease our overall BMI percentages, decrease blood pressure readings to a larger percentage of those lower 140/90, decrease elevated A1C’s, and decrease the percentage of those with elevated cholesterol by continuing the programs that we are using which are afforded through the SDPI program. We would like to increase our programs that involve movement to increase our prevention of diabetes as there has been a new member with diabetes every year. We will track these and record all figures monthly.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).