Translating the Diabetes Prevention Program into the Community: the DEPLOY Pilot Study

This study from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine explores whether lifestyle intervention programs based on the successful 2007 Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) can be used in community settings to help reduce the development of diabetes.

The study was conducted at two community YMCA facilities and participants were divided into a control group that received standard wellness advice and a group that received free access to a group-based lifestyle intervention program based on the DPP. The study found that the YMCA DPP group maintained a 6% reduction in baseline body weight and significant reductions in total cholesterol over 12 months, showing that the YMCA is an important vehicle for disseminating the DPP lifestyle intervention. YMCA programs are especially promising because they offer communities an accessible, low-cost version of the DPP intervention that translates to considerable reductions in diabetes risk.

Read the study.