The funding will support adapting a successful New-York based prevention program for patients in the United Arab Emirates.
Jeannette Beasley, associate professor of nutrition and food studies at NYU Steinhardt and medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, has been awarded a grant from the NYU Discovery Research Fund for Human Health to pilot and adapt an AI-driven diabetes prevention app tailored for the unique needs of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world.
Beasley will also collaborate with two co-Principal Investigators on this project: Scott Sherman, professor of population health, medicine, and psychiatry at NYU Grossman; and Youssef Idaghdour, associate professor of biology at NYU Abu Dhabi. Sherman, Idaghdour, and Beasley also have been working together on the UAE Healthy Future Study, a cohort study implemented through NYU Abu Dhabi’s Public Health Research Center on the causes of diseases common in the UAE and throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
This is an early-stage award designed to incubate new ideas to become large-scale projects, so it’s a perfect fit for our work.
This line of research builds off of Beasley’s highly successful BRInging the Diabetes Prevention Program to GEriatric Populations (BRIDGE), a year-long, technology-based diabetes prevention program with NYU Langone Health that helped older adults with prediabetes lose weight and lower their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
“With BRIDGE, we are finding that a virtual Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) tailored for older adults with prediabetes works for our population in New York City,” says Beasley. “Now, we want to adapt this successful intervention in the UAE, where diabetes is a major health concern.”
According to the International Diabetes Federation, the prevalence of diabetes in the UAE is 16.3%, compared to 9.3% worldwide.
Some of the adaptation techniques that Beasley and her collaborators will be employing include videos developed by and for the Emirati population, understanding limitations on outdoor activities due to the hot climate, and highlighting more local cuisine.
“This is an early-stage award designed to incubate new ideas to become large-scale projects, so it’s a perfect fit for our work,” says Beasley. “Over the next two years, we intend to complete a feasibility study and a small-scale trial, after which we can apply for further funding to develop the program even further.”
Steinhardt's Institute of Human Development and Social Change (IHDSC) was instrumental in helping with grant administration for this award.
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