The Basics
This chronic condition affects more than 37 million Americans and is characterized by high blood glucose levels.
What is type 2 diabetes?
This simple health behavior that everyone needs helps regulate blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight, but 70% of college students get insufficient amounts of it.
What is sleep?
Chronic conditions are difficult to manage because they are often incurable and require treatment over this period.
What is a lifetime?
This is the primary way that most Americans pay for chronic disease care, but a lack of it can be a major barrier to treatment.
What is health insurance?
It is often a misassumption that body weight or obesity are the only risk factors for developing diabetes, ignoring these other factors.
What are genetics and environmental factors?
This condition often has no symptoms but significantly increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, and is commonly written as “HTN” in medical charts.
What is hypertension?
Doing this health behavior after meals for 5-10 minutes can reduce one’s risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
What is walking?
This test reflects average blood sugar levels over the past 3 months and is used to diagnose type 2 diabetes.
What is Hemoglobin A1c?
A key provision of what piece of legislation prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to individuals based on these pre-existing conditions.
What is the Affordable Care Act?
This term refers to structural factors—like housing, income, and access to care—that shape chronic disease risk beyond individual behavior.
What are the social determinants of health (SDoH)?
This chronic condition is the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for 1 in every 5 deaths.
What is cardiovascular/heart disease?
These routine events are crucial for early detection of chronic conditions.
What are health screenings?
Patients with kidney failure often require this treatment to filter waste from the blood.
What is dialysis?
The “donut hole” is a term to describes a gap in prescription drug coverage in which part of Medicare.
What is Medicare Part D?
53% of young women and 33% of all women who report pain or fatigue related to heart disease and stroke are often dismissed or misdiagnosed due to this form of discrimination in the clinic.
What is clinical gender bias?
These geographic areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food can make it harder for residents to prevent chronic diseases.
What are food desserts?
Research shows that by this age, early signs of artery plaque buildup, linked to future heart attacks and stroke, can already appear.
What is 18 years old?
This federally funded program, run through community health centers, provides low-cost medications and care coordination for patients managing chronic diseases like hypertension and heart disease.
What is the Federally Qualified Health Centers program?
African Americans are this much more likely to die from cardiovascular disease as White Americans.
What is twice as likely?
This concept, first coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, describes how overlapping systems of oppression—such as racism, poverty, and sexism—compound risk and worsen outcomes for people with chronic diseases.
What is Intersectionality?
This is the amount of money spent annually on managing and treating individuals with chronic disease in the US.
What is $4.4 trillion?
This type of trendy health behavior often promises rapid weight loss or miracle health benefits but lacks strong scientific evidence and can actually increase the risk of chronic disease.
What is a fad?
The name of this medication type used to treat hypertension has an acronym associated with volleyball and decks of cards.
What are ACE inhibitors?
Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities face higher rates of diabetes despite less access to culturally competent care. Federal programs like REACH (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health) were designed to reduce this social inequality.
What is institutional/structural racism?
Nearly 1 in 3 Americans living with a chronic condition experiences this "invisible condition" as a result.
What are mental health issues?