Community Health Assessment Program in the Philippines

The investigators are adopting an intervention which has been tested in Canada to the Philippine setting. The program will be called Community Health Assessment Program in the Philippines (CHAPP). The main goal of CHAPP is to decrease diabetes and its complications by implementing a community-based program.

The CHAPP intervention will be modified so that it will be applicable to the Philippine setting and other Low and Middle Income Countries. The initial plan for the program is that trained volunteers or health workers will be running the CHAPP sessions 2-hours a week in a community location for residents in the community. During the CHAPP session, volunteers will administer a questionnaire and do basic measures (assessing the weight, height, blood pressure, waist measurement). The questions can be entered into a laptop/tablet/cell-phone or written into a paper questionnaire depending on the abilities of the volunteer to use computers. Based on the data gathered, the volunteers will identify residents who have a high risk of developing diabetes (including long term complications of diabetes such as hypertension), educate them regarding what to do to avoid having diabetes (by doing exercise, improving their diet, and avoiding unhealthy lifestyle), and refer them to local health care when needed. Residents who have high risk of developing diabetes will be referred to have their blood sugar checked. Residents who have diabetes or complications of diabetes will be checked to see if they are being treated properly; if not they will be referred to the local doctor for treatment and medication. All the information regarding the CHAPP sessions will be sent to the Local Public Health Office or other designated local health centre so that they will be able to educate, monitor, and attend to residents who have diabetes or who have high risk of developing diabetes.