Diabetes Mortality Impact Project
- Shamini V De Silva
- Nov 3
- 3 min read
Background. A team of interns on The Community Data Internship at BroadStreet Institute completed an impact project examining diabetes mellitus (DM) mortality rates in the U.S. during the June 2025 cohort (June - August 2025).
Big Picture Goal: Reduce the mortality rate of DM in the U.S.
Our Objective: By the end of the internship cohort, donate to a non-profit organization that tackles DM mortality rates, or an intermediate outcome, through an evidence-based intervention in a key region.
Inventory
Here's what we have as inputs:
💰 Money: $200 ($50 spent)
⏰ Time: 10 weeks
🧰 Tools: CDC WONDER Mortality Data (CDC WONDER, 2025)
👥 Team: 63 people (17 leaders, 46 team members)
Methods
Eight teams, composed of 5-6 members each, used CDC WONDER mortality data (CDC WONDER, 2025) to identify impacted counties across various U.S. states.
The teams then localized non-profit organizations that tackle DM mortality rates, or an intermediate outcome, in those counties.
Phase 1. Shortlisting eight counties of interest
50 states, including eight ranked by highest mortality rate for diabetes (ICD-10 codes: E10- E14), were randomly assigned to the eight teams.
Members in each team explored mortality rates at the county-level in their assigned states, and proposed a county following a data-guided approach (overall point estimate 2018-2023, trends from 2012 to 2017 and 2018 to 2023) to explore further.
Team members then reviewed the data and voted on the proposed counties (methods varied across teams).
The county with the highest votes (in each team) was selected for further exploration.
Limitations and caveats:
Counties with the highest mortality rates may not have been included
Data-guided, value-based, decision-making was followed
Phase 2. Finding organizations doing evidence-based programs
Eight counties (Dawson County, TX; Atchison County, MO; Phillips County, AR; Bertie County, NC; Menominee County, WI; McDowell County, WV; Terrell County, GA; Vinton County, OH) were explored for organizations doing evidence-based programs with a high level of evidence to reduce diabetes mortality or an intermediate outcome (ex. diabetes incidence).
At least one organization was found in all eight counties. The organizations and programs identified were peer-reviewed to check if they aligned with a decision matrix (see table below) proposed by the BroadStreet Institute Steering Committee. All but one did not pass the initial screening criteria (Criteria 1-3).
Description of Criteria | |
|---|---|
Criteria 1. Initial screening criteria | Organizations are running programs in key places. Note: "Key places" are counties where the need is high and where there are opportunities to reduce DM mortality. |
Criteria 2. Initial screening criteria | The program(s) being run by the organization within that key place is an evidence-based solution for reducing DM mortality (or an intermediate outcome). |
Criteria 3. Initial screening criteria | Organizations are non-profits 501(c)3 to which we could donate (i.e. not a government agency). Note: It is ok if a non-profit receives government funding. |
Criteria 4. | A donation, if given, could be reasonably assumed to be going to where we want: (1) THE key place (2) THE program of interest (i.e. the money would not go to another program or place). |
Criteria 5. | Organizations are at least 1 year old and have filed IRS 990s for 501(c)3. |
Criteria 6. | Organizations have an annual report in which we could see the number of people served. |
Criteria 7. | Is the organization free from obvious red flags or causes of concern? |
OhioHealth, a non-profit organization with operations in Vinton County, OH (as per the organization's website), was proposed by one of the teams. Vinton County was chosen because it had the highest mortality rate for diabetes.
OhioHealth passed most of the decision matrix criteria for donations. However, the following criteria were not met:
Criteria 2. The team had identified Wellness on Wheels as the evidence-based intervention implemented by OhioHealth for reducing DM mortality. According to a systematic review, evidence for the effectiveness of mobile clinics is limited/emerging, yet promising, for the prevention of diabetes mortality (Wang et al., 2020).
Criteria 4. We were unsure if donating to OhioHealth would go to Wellness on Wheels AND, specifically to Vinton County, OH.
Overall, based on our evaluation, we decided to donate $50 to OhioHealth, rather than $200, believing that donating is better than not donating.
References:
CDC WONDER. (2025). Underlying Cause of Death. https://wonder.cdc.gov/Deaths-by-Underlying-Cause.html
Wang, Y., Min, J., Khuri, J., Xue, H., Xie, B., Kaminsky, L., & Cheskin, L. (2020). Effectiveness of mHealth interventions on diabetes and obesity treatment and management: A systematic examination of recent evidence (Preprint). JMIR MHealth and UHealth, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.2196/15400
