World Diabetes Day 2022 is coming up in just under a week — on November 14, 2022. Each year, this day features a number of diabetes awareness campaigns, both in the physical world and online. Virtual events and activities remain more prominent than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic, but there may still be ways to get involved in your community.
World Diabetes Day was created in 1991 by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to raise awareness in response to rising diabetes rates worldwide, and it was made an official United Nations holiday in 2006. It’s recognized on November 14 to mark the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who discovered insulin along with Charles Best in 1922.
Each year, the IDF selects a theme for World Diabetes Day. For 2021-2023, the theme is Access to Diabetes Care, to highlight the barriers to medicines, technologies, support, and care that millions of people with diabetes around the world face. The focus for 2022 is access to diabetes education, with the slogan “Education to protect tomorrow” and an accompanying short video on the importance of diabetes education.
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What’s going on in 2022
World Diabetes Day events typically aren’t centrally planned. Instead, a variety of groups and individuals decide to organize and host events and activities.
Since the main objective of the day is diabetes awareness, there are a few different online efforts to spread the word about different aspects of diabetes. A new initiative for this year is the Understanding Diabetes platform, a series of short online courses designed to teach people about the basics of diabetes. For example, the first course, “An Introduction to Diabetes,” explains diabetes types and what’s happening in the body, while the second course, “The basics of blood glucose control,” discusses the importance of keeping blood glucose within a target range to help prevent long-term diabetes complications.
As it has in previous years, the IDF offers an online risk assessment to evaluate your risk for type 2 diabetes. The group encourages people both to take the assessment, and to share it with others — including through social media — as part of World Diabetes Day. The assessment is currently available in English, Spanish, and 10 other languages.
Another campaign that spans the digital and physical worlds is the IDF’s blue circle campaign, which aims to share this universal symbol for diabetes awareness far and wide. Various diabetes-related groups and workplaces also encourage members to wear blue for World Diabetes Day, and often post photos on social media — sometimes with the group posing in a circle.
World Diabetes Day is also the main day of the Global Diabetes Walk, in which millions of people have participated since it began in 2004. Depending on your location, it may take place on any day in November (or in another month, in a few cases). This year, organizers are returning to their pre-pandemic approach of fewer walks involving more people. You can find out if there is a walk near you by exploring a world map and list of walks.
How to get involved
There are a few ways to get involved with World Diabetes Day 2022, depending on how much time and effort you’d like to spend.
One of the easiest ways is to be active on social media, such as by sharing key messages about diabetes access or diabetes facts and figures. To help you do this, the IDF offers toolkits for awareness and media outreach in English, Spanish, and French.
You can also take a selfie on the day of the event and share it, ideally while wearing blue or a blue circle — or using the official blue circle selfie app for iOS phones and tablets.
The IDF has a new survey on diabetes education in recognition of this year’s focus, which you can take as a person living with diabetes or as a health care professional. If you’d like to support the IDF’s “call to action” on meeting targets for diabetes diagnosis and care, you can use an online form to send a letter to a leading health official in your country.
You can look for a local World Diabetes Day event — including virtual events — although the official worldwide event page may not be helpful, as it only includes events that are shared with the IDF. You may have better luck looking for a JDRF event online or in your area, including events related to National Diabetes Month (November) in the United States.
If you’re looking to take on a project, you can organize and promote a local event for World Diabetes Day and register it with the IDF. An event can be almost anything — a purely symbolic or commemorative activity (including lighting a building or monument in blue), a rally involving people speaking about diabetes, or an educational seminar.
If you’re organizing an event or if you work in a health care setting, you can use official educational and promotional materials that are available for World Diabetes Day.
No matter what your skills are or how much time you have, there’s a way to get the word out about diabetes on November 14.
Want to learn more about ways to observe World Diabetes Day and National Diabetes Month this November? Read “Ten Ways to Observe National Diabetes Month” and “What’s the Story Behind Diabetes Awareness Month?”