Fighting Diabetes through a Service Learning Partnership between Turtle Mountain Community College and the University of North Dakota

Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) is situated on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, one of the nation's smallest reservations (six by twelve miles) just south of the Canadian border in north‐central North Dakota. In 2005, the problem of diabetes on the reservation and in the surrounding area was chosen as the focus of the college's interdisciplinary service-learning program because type 2 diabetes is a widespread problem that directly or indirectly affects everyone on the reservation. According to Shirley Butts, director of the diabetes program at the Indian Health Service, up to 25% of the people on the reservation may have diabetes, although many may not as yet know they are diabetic and are not receiving treatment. In addition, screening done by Eric Dionne of the Tribal Diabetes Program of children in kindergarten through eighth grade in the schools on and around the reservation strongly suggests that unless something is done to change the situation, the percentage of young people with diabetes will also increase dramatically in the next ten to twenty years. Of the children screened, 58% of the children on the reservation and surrounding communities may be at high risk of becoming diabetic. Since American Indians are more than twice as likely to develop diabetes sometime during their lifetime as non‐Hispanic whites, it is extremely important to take steps to reduce the risk whenever possible by controlling weight and increasing activity. [authors]