Building Partnerships to Prevent Diabetes
February 13, 2026
Is running or weightlifting the best way to prevent type 2 diabetes in at-risk kids? This is the kind of question a scientist can design a research project around, and the media will dutifully report on the findings. But the best exercise is the one a person actually does. Designing an effective diabetes prevention program is a very different challenge than testing a particular intervention—and goes far beyond study protocols and peer-reviewed papers.
Gabriel Q. Shaibi learned this early in his career. “For intervention research to make an impact,” he writes in his essay for Issues, “it must be grounded in the needs of communities and delivered in ways that are accessible.” That requires partnering with families and the community organizations—local clinics, nonprofits, and public health departments—that implement and evaluate programs.
Shaibi has been doing this work in Arizona for the past 15 years. As he and his collaborators figure out what works in communities, they’re building a model for how diabetes prevention can move beyond research studies to make a positive impact on the lives of Arizona’s kids. And some of those former kids have come to work in his lab, becoming part of a “feeder system” of talent that knits research together with community-level change.