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Journal of Primary Health Care Journal of Primary Health Care Society
Journal of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

It is time for a more targeted approach to prediabetes in primary care in Aotearoa New Zealand

Christine Barthow https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8308-4745 1 * , Sue Pullon https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0220-5010 2 , Eileen McKinlay https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3333-5723 3 , Jeremy Krebs 1
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

1 Department of Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington, PO Box 7343, Wellington South 6242, New Zealand.

2 Department of Primary Health Care & General Practice, University of Otago, Wellington, PO Box 7343, Wellington South 6242, New Zealand.

3 Centre for Interprofessional Education, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand.

* Correspondence to: Christine.Barthow@otago.ac.nz

Handling Editor: Stokes Tim

Journal of Primary Health Care 14(4) 372-377 https://doi.org/10.1071/HC22089
Published: 11 November 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes (T2DM), its related morbidities and entrenched diabetes‐related inequities pose significant challenges for health care delivery systems in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). Primary care services undertake the majority of diabetes prevention work by initially detecting and managing those with prediabetes. In this viewpoint, we present available NZ data to highlight NZ trends in prediabetes and consider the current NZ clinical guidelines and the prediabetes care pathway. Multiple areas for improvement are identified to optimise diabetes prevention, potentially reduce T2DM inequities, and sustain more effective prediabetes management in primary care in NZ.

Keywords: cardiovascular disease, clinical guidelines, epidemiology, New Zealand, prediabetes, prevention, primary health care, progression, renal disease, type 2 diabetes.


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