Pasifika Women’s Diabetes Wellness Program Stories

Diabetes prevention and self-management – Stories from the Pasifika communities in Queensland.

The Pasifika Women’s Diabetes Wellness Program was developed using a participatory action research approach and through embedding the Talanoa Pacific methods – story telling. As a research group, we aimed to understand how our women, who already had type 2 diabetes, were looking after themselves and managing their diabetes within their family and community context.

The focus of this research was about working together with our women in the Māori and Pasifika community to develop awareness around diabetes and to promote diabetes prevention and management for our Pasifika community. We worked closely with our Pasifika communities to host three diabetes health forums that provided diabetes education, promoted awareness around chronic conditions and undertook health screening for our people within a culturally safe community space.

Community led initiatives have a far more powerful impact on change. This is partly because the work is framed around cultural safety principles and cultural values such as identity, respect, reciprocity, spirituality, family and community, which are pertinent to Māori and Pasifika communities and our ways of knowing, being and doing.

Hear from some of our Pasifika community members who took part in our research and helped inform the Pasifika Women’s Diabetes Wellness Program below.