Mayer-Davis receives $7M grant for her ‘FL3X’ program
Dr. Beth Mayer-Davis
The grant was awarded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIH/NIDDKD). Collaborators include scientists from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center and the University of Colorado.
FL3X positions diabetes educators as coaches who teach youth to identify issues that impede their diabetes care and identify solutions that work individually for patients in their daily lives. FL3X educators also work with teens’ family members to establish effective, helpful support systems that reduce conflict and build positive communication patterns. The emphasis throughout is helping adolescents better manage their insulin and blood sugars through the day, choose a healthy diet and engage in appropriate physical activity.
The grant comes on the heels of a FL3X pilot program Mayer-Davis recently completed that included 61 teenagers with Type 1 diabetes. The results were overwhelmingly positive, and at the end of the study, 100 percent of the participating teens said they would recommend the FL3X program to peers with Type 1 diabetes.
“We had young people express how much they appreciated that their coach asked — and heard — what was difficult for them and helped them find ways to address those concerns,” Mayer-Davis said. “The pilot seemed very effective in its capacity to address the realities of these young people’s daily lives.”
The new study will comprise 200 13- to 16-year-olds who have Type 1 diabetes.
Mayer-Davis is excited about bringing these techniques to more adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
“There is no one technology or one approach that will help all youth with type 1 diabetes manage their disease day-to-day,” she said. “And what works one day for an individual may not work the next day. Teaching youth to understand their world as it relates to all of the daily tasks of managing diabetes and helping them to engage actively in problem-solving according to their needs, holds great promise.”
Mayer-Davis adds that several youth and young adults with Type 1 diabetes, including some of the pilot study participants, are so enthusiastic about the FL3X program that they have volunteered to become “teen advisers” for the new study.
