wîcihitowin: Helping Each Other with Type 2 Diabetes Education Program in One Canadian Province

Background/Objectives: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is one of the fastest growing chronic pediatric conditions worldwide. Indigenous children tend to be diagnosed younger, have severe progression of disease, and poorer health outcomes. While biomedical advancements have yielded more effective treatment outcomes, few resources have been implemented to prevent T2D in Indigenous youth. Therefore, an exploratory pilot study was conducted in one Canadian province with an overall purpose of co-creating, pilot-testing, and evaluating an Indigenous community-led T2D education resource called the wîcihitowin: Helping Each Other with Type 2 Diabetes Education Program. Methods: Data for this analysis were derived from a pre- and post-test evaluation of the digital education resource with a purposeful sample of Indigenous youth (n = 87) from two Cree communities living in a western Canadian province. Descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, and correlations were used to measure the differences from pre- to post-participation in the education program. Results: The youth had moderate knowledge baseline scores of diabetes, nutrition, and physical activity. Participants reported improved knowledge on all the education topics after participating in the wîcihitowin: Helping Each Other with Type 2 Diabetes Program. Significant positive correlations were found between all knowledge areas. Conclusions: The digital education resource effectively enhanced youths’ knowledge of diabetes, nutrition, and physical activity. Additionally, these findings highlighted the importance of culturally safe teachings for Indigenous peoples, emphasizing the need for T2D education to be community and culturally driven. These results are particularly important given the lack of existing evidence evaluating the effectiveness of T2D education among Indigenous youth.