Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a metabolic disease that affects over 38 million adults in the United States, who are disproportionately Hispanic.
Objective: This study describes the development and implementation of Salud Paso por Paso, a culturally tailored and linguistically appropriate intervention to increase engagement in physical activity (PA) for Hispanic adults living with T2DM.
Methods: Participants were enrolled in a 6-week pre-post pilot test of a culturally tailored intervention that included sessions covering different aspects of PA and T2DM. Participants were recruited at a local free clinic. Nonparametric paired-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to examine differences between pre- and postintervention measures.
Results: Twenty-one participants were recruited, and 19 (90.5%) completed the intervention. Participants significantly increased average hours spent in moderate PA, by 3.16 hours (from 4.73, SD 3.79 minutes to 9.63, SD 6.39 minutes; Z=-3.52; P<.001), average steps per week (from 23,006.38, SD 14,357.13 steps to 43,000.81, SD 30,237.17 steps; Z=-2.79; P=.005), and minutes per week of PA (from 105.94, SD 72.23 minutes to 224.19, SD 167.85 minutes; Z=-3.36; P<.001).
Conclusions: Developing effective culturally tailored interventions that can ameliorate the deleterious effects of T2DM in Hispanic adults is an important strategy to promote health equity. The Salud Paso por Paso intervention is an effective way to promote PA in Hispanic adults living with T2DM.
Background: Digital health solutions (DHS) are technologies with the potential to improve patient outcomes as well as change the way care is delivered. The value of DHS for people with diabetes is not well understood, nor is it clear how to quantify this value.
Objective: We aimed to summarize current literature on the use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in diabetes as well as in selected guidelines for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) of DHS to highlight gaps, needs, and opportunities for the use of PROMs to evaluate DHS.
Methods: We searched PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov to establish which PROMs were most used in diabetes clinical trials and research between 1995 and May 2024. HTA guidelines on DHS evaluation from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom were also assessed to identify PROMs for DHS evaluation in general.
Results: A total of 46 diabetes-specific PROMs and 16 nondiabetes-specific PROMs were identified. The most used diabetes-specific PROMs were (1) Diabetes Distress Scale, (2) Problem Areas in Diabetes, (3) Diabetes Empowerment Scale, (4) Diabetes Quality of Life, and (5) Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire. The most used nondiabetes-specific PROMs were Beck Depression Inventory, Sickness Impact Profile, EuroQol 5-Dimension, and Short Form 36-Item Health Survey. In HTA guidelines, the most prominent domain was health-related quality of life, for whose assessment there are well-established measures (Short Form 36-Item Health Survey and EuroQol 5-Dimension).
Conclusions: Of the many PROMs used in diabetes care, few are currently used to evaluate DHS, and certain domains of value in diabetes are not mentioned in HTA guidelines. A common, comprehensive DHS-specific HTA framework could facilitate and accelerate the evaluation of DHS.
Background: Adherence to type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) treatment regimens decreases during adolescence. While comorbid depression and health insurance disparities are individually known to potentiate this risk, technological devices for T1DM appear to be protective.
Objective: We examined whether technology use impacted the association between depression and poorer health outcomes in T1DM. Given established insurance-based disparities based on technology access, we also studied whether the protective effects of T1DM technology differed among publicly and privately insured youth.
Methods: Data were prospectively collected from pediatric patients with T1DM across 3 California medical centers. We used linear and negative binomial regression analyses to examine whether technology use was related to diabetes outcomes and whether this differed based on depression status (technology-by-depression interaction) and health insurance type (technology-by-insurance interaction).
Results: Across 1573 patients aged 12 to 25 years (mean age 15.9, SD 2.9 years; n=1050, 66.4%, non-Hispanic White; n=745, 47.0% female), those with a depression diagnosis had higher hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c; mean 9.1%, SD 2.1% vs 10.1%, SD 2.2%) and more frequent diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) events per year (mean 0.10, SD 0.36 vs 0.24, SD 0.66) than those without (P=.003). Patients using both a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and pump had lower HbA1c levels and fewer DKA events per year (mean HbA1c 8.2%, SE 0.1%; mean DKA events per year 0.05, SE 0.01) than those using one device (mean HbA1c 9.0%, SE 0.1%; mean DKA events 0.08, SE 0.1%) or none (mean HbA1c 10.0%, SE 0.1%; mean DKA events 0.19, SE 0.1%; P<.001). While youth with public insurance had significantly higher HbA1c levels than those with commercial insurance (mean 9.3%, SD 2.1% vs 9.0%, SD 2.0%, P<.001), those using a CGM had no reliable decrease in HbA1c compared to their commercially insured peers (P=.35).
Conclusions: Technology use in pediatric T1DM appears protective for both youth with a history of depression and those who are publicly insured. These data underscore the importance of universal access to technology to mitigate disparities based on comorbid mental health issues and differential access to care.
Background: Diabetes-related lower extremity complications, such as foot ulceration and amputation, are on the rise, currently affecting nearly 131 million people worldwide. Methods for early detection of individuals at high risk remain elusive. While data-driven diabetic polyneuropathy algorithms exist, high-performing, clinically useful tools to assess risk are needed to improve clinical care.
Objective: This study aimed to develop an electronic medical record-based machine learning algorithm that would predict lower extremity complications.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective longitudinal cohort study to predict the risk of lower extremity complications within 24 months of an initial diagnosis of diabetic polyneuropathy. From an initial cohort of 468,162 individuals with at least 1 diagnosis of diabetic polyneuropathy at one of 2 multispecialty health care systems (based in northern California and Colorado) between April 2012 and December 2016, we created an analytic cohort of 48,209 adults with continuous enrollment, who were newly diagnosed with no evidence of end-of-life care. The outcome was any lower extremity complication, including foot ulceration, osteomyelitis, gangrene, or lower extremity amputation. We randomly split the data into training (38,569/48209; 80%) and testing (9,640/48209; 20%) datasets. In the training dataset, we used super Learner (SL), an ensemble learning method that employs cross-validation and combines multiple candidate risk predictors, into a single risk predictor. We evaluated the performance of the SL risk predictor in the testing dataset using the receiver operating characteristic curve and a calibration plot.
Results: Of the 48,209 individuals in the cohort, 2327 developed a lower extremity complication during follow-up. The SL risk estimator exhibited good discrimination (AUC=0.845, 95% CI 0.826-0.863) and calibration. A modified version of our SL algorithm, simplified to facilitate real-world adoption, had only slightly reduced discrimination (AUC=0.817, 95%CI 0.797-0.837). The modified version slightly outperformed the naïve logistic regression model (AUC=0.804, 95% CI 0.783-0.825) in terms of precision gained relative to the frequency of alerts and number of patients that needed to be evaluated.
Conclusions: We have built a machine learning-based risk estimator with the potential to improve clinical detection of diabetic patients at high risk for lower extremity complications at the time of an initial diabetic polyneuropathy diagnosis. The algorithm exhibited good discriminant validity and calibration using only data from the electronic medical record. Additional research will be needed to identify optimal contexts and strategies for maximizing algorithmic fairness in both interpretation and deployment.
Background: Numerous barriers to moderate to vigorous physical activity exist for youths with type 1 diabetes (T1D). The virtual exercise games for youth with T1D (ExerT1D) intervention implement synchronous support of moderate to vigorous physical activity including T1D peers and role models.
Objective: This study aims to understand the acceptability of this intervention to participants.
Methods: We conducted postprogram, semistructured, televideo interviews with participating youths to elicit perspectives on the acceptability of the intervention and experience with the program. Two coders independently reviewed and analyzed each transcript using a coding scheme developed inductively by senior researchers. Discrepancies were resolved by team discussion, and multiple codes were grouped together to produce 4 main thematic areas.
Results: All 15 participants provided interviews (aged 14-19 years; 2 nonbinary, 6 females; median hemoglobin A1c level of 7.8% (IQR 7.4%-11.2%), 5 with a hemoglobin A1c level of ≥10%). Qualitative data revealed four themes: (1) motivation to engage in physical activity (PA)-improving their physical capabilities and stabilizing glucose levels were cited as motivation for PA and challenges of living with T1D were cited as PA barriers; (2) experience with and motivation to manage diabetes while engaging in PA-participants provided details of accommodating the inherent uncertainty or limitations of PA with diabetes and sometimes preparing for PA involved psychological and motivational adjustments while some relayed feelings of avoidance; (3) peer support encouraged engagement with the intervention-participants appreciated the peer aspects of components of ExerT1D and participants' reflections of the facilitated group experience highlight many benefits of a small-group virtual program; and (4) improvements in PA and diabetes self-management efficacy-all participants credited the program with improving or at least raising awareness of T1D management skills.
Conclusions: Our virtual PA intervention using an active video game and discussion component provided adolescents with T1D the confidence and peer support to engage in PA, improved awareness of diabetes-specific tasks to prepare for exercise, and improved understanding of the effect of PA on glucose levels. Engaging youths with a virtual video game intervention is a viable approach to overcome barriers to PA for adolescents with T1D.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05163912; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05163912.
Background: Diabetes management involves a large degree of data collection and self-care in order to accurately administer insulin. Several mobile apps are available that allow people to track and record various factors that influence their blood sugar levels. Existing diabetes apps offer features that enable integrations with various devices that streamline diabetes management, such as continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, or regular activity trackers. While this reduces the tracking burden on the users, the research highlighted several issues with diabetes apps, including issues with reliability and trustworthiness. As pumps and continuous glucose monitors are safety-critical systems-where issues can result in serious harm or fatalities-it is important to understand what issues and vulnerabilities could be introduced by relying on popular diabetes apps as an interface for interacting with such devices.
Objective: As there is a lack of research examining in detail the integrations and potential suitability of apps as part of a wider self-management ecosystem, our goal was 2-fold. First, we aimed to understand the current landscape of device integrations within diabetes apps and how well they meet users' needs. Second, we identified the key issues users of the most popular apps face currently and what features are the source of these issues.
Methods: Through searches in Android and iPhone app stores, we systematically identified 21 diabetes apps that offer integrations. We conducted a detailed analysis of 602 user reviews. For each review, we recorded its sentiment, features and issues, and additional contextual information provided by the review writers. We used descriptive statistics to analyze the features and issues. We also analyzed the reviews thematically to identify additional trends related to the context of use and the consequences of issues reported by the users.
Results: The reviews focused on key features that users found the most important, including device integrations (n=259, 43%), tracking (n=194, 32.2%), data logging (n=86, 14.3%), and notifications (n=70, 11.6%). We found that 327 (54.3%) of the reviews were negative versus 187 (31.1%) positive and 88 (14.6%) neutral or mixed, and the majority of reviews (n=378, 62.8%) mentioned issues. The biggest issues related to device integrations included inability to connect with external devices (n=95, 25.1%), inability to store, manage, or access data (n=49, 22%), unreliable notifications and alerts (n=35, 9.2%), issues caused by or related to software updates (n=31, 8.5%), hardware issues (n=24, 6.4%), and issues with accessing the app, related services, or associated hardware (n=12, 3.2%).
Conclusions: Apps for diabetes management are a useful part of self-care only if they are reliable and trustworthy, reduce burden, and increase health benefits. Our results provide
Unlabelled: This research letter presents a cross-sectional analysis comparing the agreement between artificial intelligence models and nephrologists in responding to common patient questions about diabetic nephropathy.

