Type 2 Diabetes Science and American Indian/Alaska Native Culture: Creating a National K–12 Curriculum Prevention Strategy for Native Youth

AI/ANs bear a disproportionate burden of type 2 diabetes. In 2009, the age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes among AI/ANs > 20 years of age was more than double the rate for non-Hispanic whites.²  According to the Indian Health Service, in a 10-year period between 1994 and 2004, the age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes doubled among those < 35 years of age, and although type 2 diabetes is still rare among children, there was a 68% increase among AI/AN youth 15–19 years of age.³ 

Such early onset of type 2 diabetes for AI/ANs results in more years of disease burden and a higher probability of developing diabetes-related complications over the life span.⁴  AI/AN youth are not only at high risk for the disease, but also directly affected by diabetes-related health issues in their families and their communities. For this reason, effective diabetes prevention programs targeting AI/AN youth are a priority in the education and public health fields for this population.⁵ 

Development of the DETS curriculum was based on the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), a multicenter, clinical, randomized trial among prediabetic populations. The DPP provided significant evidence for preventing the onset of type 2 diabetes through an intensive lifestyle prevention strategy.⁶  Subsequent lifestyle modification studies, including several among AI/AN populations, have demonstrated success in delaying and preventing the onset of the disease.⁷ 

Moore et al.⁸  emphasize the importance of educating AI/AN youth about the results of the DPP clinical trials and the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions. Based on the DPP findings, the DETS curriculum teaches throughout the K–12 school years that the occurrence of type 2 diabetes does not have to be a foregone conclusion for young AI/ANs.

The creation of a diabetes-based science education curriculum for tribal schools was no small feat. In 2001, the Indian Health Service (IHS) Tribal Leaders Diabetes Committee asked the congressionally authorized Diabetes Mellitus Coordinating Committee to address the epidemic of type 2 diabetes in AI/AN communities. The member organizations of the coordinating committee, including the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Native Diabetes Wellness Program, CDC, IHS, and IHS Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention, rose to the challenge with an unprecedented interagency agreement to fund and support tribal educators to create the DETS curriculum. Further information about the curriculum can be obtained online from http://www3.niddk.nih.gov/fund/other/dets/index.htm.⁹ 

The 36 tribal colleges and universities were invited to submit proposals for the creation of a diabetes curriculum, and eight were funded: Cankdeska Cikana Community College (Fort Totten, N.D.), Fort Peck Community College (Poplar, Mont.), Haskell Indian Nations University (Lawrence, Kans.), Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (Baraga, Mich.), Leech Lake Tribal College (Cass Lake, Minn.), Northwest Indian College (Bellingham, Wash.), Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (Albuquerque, N.M.), and Stone Child College (Box Elder, Mont.). The eight funded colleges included a combination of Native and non-Native educational faculty, curriculum designers, and cultural experts from the tribal communities. The knowledge of tribal educators was essential to creating a curriculum that was both scientifically rigorous and responsive to the sociocultural needs of tribal youth, their families, and their tribal communities.

The curriculum's foremost intention is to inform, educate, and build the science skills of AI/AN students, with both teachers and students as active participants. Many teachers are not from the communities in which they teach and are eager to better understand the historical, cultural, and health issues of their students. In recognizing this and the myriad of other challenges faced by AI/AN students, DETS curriculum developers sought to create, as Bruner¹⁰  suggests, “communities of learners, a participatory, proactive, communal, collaborative process of constructing meanings rather than receiving them.”

With a title and guiding mantra of “Health Is Life in Balance,” the curriculum includes seven multidisciplinary supplement units spanning the K–12 grade levels. There are three primary goals:

1. To increase the understanding of health, diabetes, and maintenance of life in balance among AI/AN students;

2. To increase AI/AN students' application of scientific and community (cultural) knowledge about health, diabetes, and maintenance of balance; and

3. To increase interest in science and the health professions among AI/AN students.

The intention is that the curriculum will be adopted by tribal, charter, and public school systems nationwide to advance the effectiveness of culturally relevant education and enhances a national diabetes prevention effort.

DETS is a state-of-the-art science curriculum. The curriculum meets the National Science Standards, which provide criteria to judge progress toward a national vision of learning and a teaching system that promotes excellence.¹¹  In particular, the DETS curriculum focuses on learning science by doing science.¹²  In addition to meeting National Science Standards, there are two specific units at the middle-school level that address National Social Studies Standards and one specific unit at the high-school level targeting the National Health Standards.

The sequenced and interrelated continuum of diabetes-based education is supported by the premise that science should be seen as inquiry. A “5E” instructional model known as the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, or BSCS, was developed in the late 1980s to incorporate inquiry learning into science curriculums. The “five Es” are engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. The DETS project used this framework to support the curriculum foundation of teacher coherence and student understanding of scientific knowledge and skills.¹³  Each lesson includes learning activities and promotes collaborative learning in the classroom. (A sample 5E-based curriculum is shown in Table 1.)

DETS is also an innovative, culturally responsive curriculum. The curriculum allows for the cultural values and the lens through which students see their world to be integrated within the experience of connecting health and diabetes. The curriculum recognizes and honors the geographical, historical, and cultural diversity among AI/AN tribes. It allows students to frame a relationship between place and health that reflects their connectedness to self, family, community, and tribe. The curriculum also facilitates the integration of traditional knowledge and native science¹⁴  with state-of-the-art diabetes science to allow students to see themselves as future scientists and health professionals. Ultimately, the DETS curriculum creates a framework built on excellence and equity in science education reflected through culturally relevant contexts.

During the fall 2007 and winter 2008 school semesters, the DETS curriculum was evaluated in schools in 14 states to examine how teachers used it in their respective classrooms and how students responded to it across a broad geographical and cultural spectrum.¹⁵  Preliminary findings indicate that the DETS curriculum had an effective impact relative to its three goals. Across each content area, teachers consistently rated the Native American content of the DETS curriculum as “strong” or “very strong.” Most importantly, students consistently showed statistically significant knowledge gains across all content areas and all grade levels (elementary, middle, and high school).

The DETS curriculum, available through the IHS Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention, presents diabetes science framed in the culturally relevant contexts of the AI/AN experience. The curriculum was carefully crafted to meet national science education standards and can serve as a supplement for science, social science, and health education lessons across all grade levels. The earlier grade levels can also be adapted for Head Start and pre-kindergarten education.

Approximately 4,000 copies of the full curriculum (29,000 individual units spanning the K–12 curriculum series) have been distributed across the country. The curriculum can be ordered online from http://www.ihs.gov/MedicalPrograms/Diabetes/RESOURCES/Catalog/rde/index.cfm?module=catalog&opt=2.

National organizational support has been successful through resolutions from the National Congress of American Indians, National Indian Education Association, and, most recently, a recommendation on “Health and Wellness in Bureau of Indian Education Schools, K–12” that is being drafted for inclusion in the U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Affairs Bureau manual (http://www.bia.gov/index.htm). The success of the DETS curriculum and associated learning materials such as Eagle Books¹⁶  has led to the development of similar curriculums for other high-risk populations.