Houston joins Cities Changing Diabetes initiative

Houston, Texas has joined the Cities Changing Diabetes initiative, an initiative by Novo Nordisk, UCL and the Steno Diabetes Centre to fight the urban diabetes epidemic today. The programme, supported by the Mayor of Houston as well as the city's Health & Human Services department, is an ambitious partnership program to fight the urban diabetes challenge. The aim of Cities Changing Diabetes is to map the problem, share solutions and drive concrete action to fight the diabetes challenge in selected focus cities across the world. By 2035, it is estimated that more than half a billion people will have diabetes. Today, nearly two-thirds of all people with diabetes live in cities, and people who move to cities have a significantly higher risk of developing diabetes than those who remain in rural settings. Houston is the third city globally and the first in the United States to join the Cities Changing Diabetes program, which launched in Mexico City earlier this year and was followed by Copenhagen shortly after. David Napier, Professor of Medical Anthropology at UCL and Director of the university's Science, Medicine and Society Network, designed the research framework for the programme, which aims to map major gaps and vulnerabilities associated with diabetes, facilitated by UCL Consultants.