Tricia S. Tang

Rpsych, PhD

Affiliate Investigator, BC Children's Hospital

My program of research focuses on diabetes prevention and control in ethnic minority, high risk, and medically underserved communities. Overwhelming evidence has demonstrated that participation in self-management interventions lead to improved diabetes-related health and psychosocial outcomes. However, in the absence of ongoing, long-term support, these improvements are short-lived (less than 6 months). My research team develops, implements, and evaluates sustainable and capacity building models to promote lifelong diabetes self-management efforts. Over the past 10 years, we have been investigating peer support as a promising model to improve diabetes care in economically disadvantaged or marginalized communities. These communities include African American and Latino adults in Detroit Michigan and South Asian adults in Vancouver, British Columbia. We have also initiated a peer support study recruiting newly diagnosed and complex patients from tertiary care settings. By drawing on community-based resources such as peer support, it is possible to implement diabetes prevention and self-management interventions in a cost-effective and practical way that can potentially lead to clinical and psychosocial benefits particularly for high risk and low-resource communities.