Culturally Tailored Diabetes Care Can Improve Outcomes and Reduce Costs: Alyson K. Myers, MD

Alyson K. Myers, MD, professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and associate chair of faculty mentoring and community engagement at Montefiore Einstein, department of medicine, discussed how culturally tailored, community-integrated diabetes care can improve outcomes and reduce costs as chair of the “Adapting Diabetes Care for All” session featuring the “Felicia Hill-Briggs Trailblazer in Health Equity” award lecture at the 86th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

In an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care^®, Myers emphasized that going beyond usual care—through psychological support, health education, and culturally tailored care for racial and ethnic minority populations—yields meaningful clinical and financial returns. "You can really improve health outcomes,” she said. “But also, more importantly, because we know right now the economy is not in a great place, you can actually reduce health care expenditures in these groups of patients.”

She also stressed the value of integrating community-based organizations (CBOs) into primary care to address social determinants of health and urged that diabetes prevention not be deprioritized. With recent funding cuts eroding traditional payment mechanisms, she called for sustainable models to support the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). "Coming up with solutions to be able to maintain and sustain programs around the DPP are going to be an important thing we need to think about," she said.

Drawing on her work in the Bronx—where roughly 80–90% of residents identify as Black or Hispanic and the community speaks dozens of languages—Myers argued that community knowledge is non-negotiable. "It's really important that you know your community, you know what they need, and you know what they have access to," she said, noting that well-intentioned interventions routinely fail without it. "You have to meet people where they are."

Myers also spoke to the personal significance of the session, noting that Felicia Hill-Briggs, PhD, for whom the Trailblazer Award is named, was both a sorority sister and a research collaborator. The award recipient, Sherita Golden, MD, has served as a mentor to Myers. "They pretty much wrote the Bible on social determinants of health and diabetes care," she said, describing the moment as meaningful on both a professional and personal level.