Rebecca Olson ^1*, Fabio Sabogal ¹, Ana Perez ¹

¹ Lumetra

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rolson{at}caqio.sdps.org.

	Abstract

Viva la Vida (Live Your Life) is a call to action for older Latinos to take charge of their diabetes and live life to the fullest. Lumetra, California’s federally designated Medicare quality improvement organization, developed the Viva la Vida project to improve diabetes care among Latino Medicare beneficiaries in 4 Southern California counties. After researching barriers to good diabetes care among Latino seniors, Lumetra designed a multifaceted program targeting health care providers and Medicare beneficiaries through bilingual, low-literacy health education materials and tools, community and provider partnerships, and the mass media. The project succeeded in helping to reduce the disparity in glycosylated hemoglobin testing between White and Latino Medicare beneficiaries in the 4 program counties.

Key Words: Diabetes, Community Health, Hispanics/Latinos