Diabetes in the United Arab Emirates, Research Paper Example

The success stories of the fantastic oil-fueled economic development has been heard around the world concerning growth in Dubai and Abu Dubai. However, there is an epidemic looming of diabetes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that is devastating an oil rich country. The global world has different diseases that devastate different regions however, one the most alarming increases in cases of diabetes is the UAE the gulf. The UAE is spending 25 billion annual to combat the out of control diabetes epidemic which is more than any other country (Al Wasmi, 2014). The diabetes epidemic is clearly taking a toll on the UAE economics and the national crisis has some future implications that will affect the social and economic foundation of the future for UAE.

The national crisis is UAE has impact one out of every four citizens and has the second highest diabetes rate in the world (Setrakrain, 2007). Diabetes in UAE has become a chronic disease that is impacting the quality of life of UAE citizens and their families because this disease is always unforgiving. The UAE diabetes crisis is not just a UAE problem but a global problem that must be addressed to ensure children and families are healthy well into the future. In the media, UAE has been aggressively bring awareness to UAE while starting that diabetes in the UAE is not even close to being under control. The problem of undiagnosed diabetes is one of the major problems because UAE has not put preventive resources in place to ensure the population is educated. The inability to diagnosis, treat and screen citizens in UAE creates a problematic epidemic that is growing by the minute. The UAE diabetic problems needs to be addressed before the epidemic over takes the country while devastating the healthcare system with increasing diabetes patients. The government of UAE need to take urgent actions to prevent the continue spread of the diabetic epidemic with preventive programs to address the problem.

Relevance UAE/Gulf Region

The world has seen the seriousness and long term devastation when a country is faced with an epidemic of type 2 diabetes that go unresolved. The UAE diabetes epidemic is relevant because the evidence is clear that diabetes is spreading in the UAE region. Diabetes is spreading quickly in the Middle East in Qatar that shows diabetes is higher by 25% in UAE and the self-report diabetes rates having increased by 4.3 %(Zimmet, 2010). This makes the diabetes epidemic in UAE relevant to the global condition of type 2 diabetes breakouts. The epidemic of diabetes UAE is one of the most serious threats to public health in the 21st century.

Diabetes Issue in UAE/Gulf Region

In a few short years of growing economically strong in the United Arab Emirates and the gulf has been phenomenal. The prosperity and wealth of its citizens may be one the greatest in history. However, along with this new found economic explosion is a country that is struggling to control the rapid growth of diabetes in UAE and the gulf. At this rate of diabetes cases increasing two fold United Arab Emirates may end up with one the worst epidemics in history. According to Diabetes UAE 2011, UAE is has one the highest risk potential for diabetes that is rising along with obesity rates and physical inactivity root causes. In addition, UAE is ranked at number 16^th worldwide at 19% of the population has been diagnosed with diabetes.

The diabetes issues in UAE has some long term implications that are not good for the socio-economic growth in the gulf region. The first implication is the citizens of UAE may occur more health cost to purchase medications which will drive up the demand and the price. The UAE society will have problems ensuring the entire region can afford the diabetes medication. The second implication is UAE has not been able to stabilize the spread of diabetes that is slowing devastating the region. Consequently, the continue diabetes epidemic with have severe fiscal consequences that including a major threat to economic stability in the gulf region.

A study by McLaughlin, Stoltz and Kemp (2013) found:

The research and analysis of diabetes in the United Arab Emirates and the gulf is alarming. In the Mena Middle East North African regions (MENA) diabetes has gotten out of control. These six countries Oman, Kuwait, Saudi, Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt have the worlds 10 highest occurrences of diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance (pg.1).  The study is alarming because UAE is leading the world in uncontrolled diabetes and they are losing the battle of slowing down the diabetes epidemic. There are serious implications including the strain on the healthcare system to treat diabetes epidemic especially in the numbers double over the next five years. The citizen’s alarm concerning getting treatment will create a massive rush by UAE citizens to visit healthcare providers that may not be prepared with an increase population of diabetes patients.

According to El Shamman(2008) found that in Abu Dhabi an estimated 20% of UAE population in living with diabetes and 40% of the residents 60 have diabetes which constitutes 75% percent of UAE deaths are attributed to diabetes. The study went on to find that diabetes is one the fastest growing illness in the UAE. The healthcare industry has difficulty dealing with the additional children that are being diagnosed with diabetes. The population is growing so fast that the regions can to keep up with detection and screening needs in the UAE and the gulf.

The government has begun to implemented health living initiatives aimed at children and adults that are diagnosed with the disease and the citizens are obese due to a sedentary life unhealthy diets and increase cases of hypertension. In addition, the healthcare industry cannot keep up with the demand for diabetic educators and doctors and nutritionist required to address the epidemics. The future of healthcare is at stake because the government cannot slow down the diabetes outbreak in the UAE.

Current Solutions

One the current solutions is UAE government has made a call to action by hiring Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm to increase the awareness and the local sense of urgency to get control of the diabetes epidemic before it’s too late(Middle East Hospita,2015). The Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm can spread the news of all over the world and saturate the gulf region with awareness campaigns to change the UEA healthcare climate. The UAE government has issued urgent request from healthcare providers to be more aggressive in finding avenues to improve detection of diabetes solutions while encouraging a lifestyle change for the society of UEA.  The public and private sector has to sustain an awareness campaigns that include citizen’s involvement, testimonials, mail mailing and any other way to create the necessary public sense of urgency (Alkabab, Abdely& Heysell, 2015).The executive leaders, media sponsors and the private sector is joining together to deliver a collaborative awareness campaign that reach millions of people in the UAE and the world.

The Booz Allen Hamilton plan including reaching out to other countries to collaborate on how to best prevent the spread of diabetes and share information concerning which countries were successful stopping the diabetic epidemic. The consulting firm shared that communication from region to region and country to country is imperative to create a diabetic forum that improve communication and innovative preventive ideas (Booz Allen Hamilton, 2012).  The government has tried several different ideas to stop the spread however, they concluded that the Booz Allen Hamilton has more experience combating a world-wide epidemic. Booz Allen Hamilton found that the nations must address the spread of diabetes in the workforce and the public because the behavior must be changed at home and at work (Booz Allen Hamilton, 2012).  There has been enough studies by the Middle East that provide some warning that this diabetic epidemic was coming to UAE. The government has to be held accountable for not creating enough preventive programs to address the spreading epidemic.

In a study by Peykari et al.(2015) found that scientific studies performed from 1990-2012 showed that over 23 years Middle East countries collaborated on providing diabetes data to find trends and evidence of effective solutions. The study tracked all diabetes research that included healthcare outputs of Middle East countries who published studies by the publication numbers, listing of citations numbers and internationalpartnership. As result of these shared studies, it was found that encouraging trends emerged that could help with the eradication of diabetes and evidence on the best practices of early intervention. These publications interventions clearly show the UAE has been aware of this epidemic for at least two decades however, they have not been able to create an innovative plan to slow down the spread of diabetes.

Conclusions

The continue spread of the UAE diabetic epidemic can have social and economic implications for the future. A country that has riches from the oil industry has some challenges that come along with economic growth. The economic development that has been evident in Dubai and Abu Dubai has been overshadowed by the epidemic of diabetes in UAE. The looming problems of the diabetes problems in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become a global problem that must be addressed. The collaborative sharing of healthcare information can help the globe learn how to create preventative programs that prevent the widespread of type 2 diabetes.

The national crisis for UAE has evidence that the region is leading the world in diabetic incidents that are not decreasing for the last two decades. The diabetes in UAE has become a major illness that impacting the quality of life of UAE citizens because diabetes is fast becoming the number leading cause of death in UAE. The trends of the UAE population points to future problems because the healthcare industry will become overworked and they will not have enough healthcare workers to address the diabetes crisis. The physician offices will be overloaded, the hospitals will not be able to handle all the UAE diabetes patients and the overall healthcare system will be in dire straits.

References

Alkabab, Y. M., Al-Abdely, H. M., & Heysell, S. K. (2015). Review: Diabetes-related tuberculosis in the Middle East: an urgent need for regional research. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2015.09.010

Al Wasmi, N. (2014, Jun).Diabetes is not under control in UAE, experts say. Retrieved from http://www.thenational.ae/uae/health/diabetes-is-not-under-control-in-uae-experts-say

Booz Allen Hamilton. (2012). Booz Allen Hamilton and Business Leaders Explore Workplace Solutions for Preventing Diabetes in the UAE. Business Wire retrieved from EBSHOST database

Diabetes UAE 2011. (2014). Diabetes facts: New figures from International Diabetes Federation November 14 2014) suggests that 387 million are living with diabetes worldwide, up from 382 million a year ago. Retrieved from http://diabetesuae.ae/diabetes/diabetes-facts

McLaughlin, G., Stoltz,K., & Kemp, J. (2013).Diabetes in the UAE: Portrait of a country at risk. Retrieved from http://www.middleeasthealthmag.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?http://www.middleeasthealthmag.com/jan2013/feature11.htm

Middle East Hospital. (2015).UAE 2013 Diabetes guidelines. Retrieved from http://middleeasthospital.com/?p=1861

Peykari, N., Djalalinia, S., Kasaeian, A., Naderimagham, S., Hasannia, T., Larijani, B., & Farzadfar, F. (2015). Diabetes research in Middle East countries; a scientometrics study from 1990 to 2012. Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 20(3), 253-262.

Setrakain, L. (2007).UAE and diabetes: One in four has it. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Health/DiabetesResource/story?id=4044952&page=1

Zimmet, P.Z. (2010). The growing pandemic of type 2 diabetes: a crucial need for prevention and improved detection. Retrieved from http://www.medicographia.com/2011/07/the-growing-pandemic-of-type-2-diabetes-a-crucial-need-for-prevention-and-improved-detection/