
Challenges
- Approximately 3.0 million people in Texas (14% of the population) have diabetes. Among them, an estimated 663,000 are undiagnosed, which significantly increases their health risks.
- Another 6.8 million people have prediabetes, with blood glucose levels above the normal range but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.
- The annual cost of diabetes and prediabetes in Texas is estimated at $25.6 billion.
- Texas is projected to have a higher diabetes incidence rate and increased health care costs in the future due to the growing population of Hispanics/Latinos, who are at greater risk for the disease.
AgriLife Extension Response

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Diabetes is not curable, but it is manageable. People can learn skills to manage their diabetes and reduce the risk of developing it through better nutrition, exercise and monitoring blood-sugar levels when education is readily available.
- Do Well, Be Well with Diabetes is a low-cost class series covering nine self-care and nutrition topics in five sessions.
- ¡Sí, Yo Puedo Controlar Mí Diabetes! addresses the gap in health programming in type 2 diabetes self-management education for Texas Hispanics/ Latinos.
- Cooking Well with Diabetes engages dietitians and diabetes educators to reinforce the practical nutritional applications of the selfcare lesson series Do Well, Be Well with Diabetes.
- Wisdom, Power, Control addresses the need for an evidence-based, culturally relevant type 2 diabetes self-management education (DSME) program to help African Americans.
- Through Healthy South Texas, the pilot program of Healthy Texas, AgriLife Extension is working to reduce the highest impact diseases and their consequences throughout a 27-county region in South Texas. The goal is to focus on prevention by engaging families and communities, promoting healthy behaviors, encouraging preventive care and improving disease outcomes.
- In 2019, diabetes education programs reached more than 53,000 educational and other contacts.
Economic Impacts
From a broader perspective, these programs reach communities and individuals lacking access to diabetes education, enabling a better quality of life and improved productivity for people with diabetes.
- For people without diabetes, average annual health care costs range from $4,220 to $7,151. For those with diabetes, that amount soars to an average of $16,752 per year.
- Proper self-management of the disease enables people with diabetes to reduce their health care costs to levels closer to the nondiabetes level.
- AgriLife Extension diabetes education programs led to estimated lifetime health care cost savings and improved productivity of $16.7 million for approximately 600 participants in 2019.