About

About the Blog

Sweet Resolution was originally set up in October 2006 as a blog in support of the Unite for Diabetes campaign for a UN Resolution on Diabetes. At that time, the purpose of the site was to:

1. increase awareness of diabetes as a public health priority among you, my audience.
2. serve as a platform for diabetes and chronic disease-related international news.
3. educate readers about diabetes, its importance, and to dispel common myths.
4. carefully consider the facts, weigh evidence, and identify potential solutions for reducing the burden of diabetes and chronic disease throughout the world.

On December 20, 2006, the UN Resolution Resolution 61/225 was passed, resulting in the designation of 14 November as a United Nations-recognized World Diabetes Day; the encouragement of Member States to develop national policies for the prevention, treatment and care of diabetes in line with the sustainable development of their health-care systems; and the request for the Secretary-General to bring the present resolution to the attention of all Member States and organizations of the United Nations system. A resounding global health success.

In an attempt to continue to raise awareness of diabetes and related non-communicable diseases, or NCDs (including cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, and cancers), I kept blogging about these issues until mid 2008, when life became busy, as it often does, and I couldn’t seem to find time to post. The blog has been relatively (ok, completely and utterly) neglected since then.

Now, with a renewed energy and focus on NCDs as global health priorities in the lead-up to the UN High-level meeting on NCDs to be held in September 2011, I have decided to re-instate the blog. The focus will remain more or less the same, with an emphasis on the societal causes and consequences of NCDs and the ongoing discussions and as-yet unanswered questions about the appropriate role of industry in prevention and control of NCDs.

I’ll try to post as often as I can, and will try my best to keep the blog up-to-date with the rapidly evolving field. I hope you enjoy my posts, and I look forward to your comments on the issues I will present here.

Karen
December 2010

About the Author

Karen Siegel, MPH, is a PhD student in Nutrition and Health Sciences and a Woodruff Scholar at Emory University’s Laney Graduate School and Rollins School of Public Health. She has written articles on environmental and policy approaches to prevent chronic diseases in India and globally, as well as on diabetes advocacy issues and chronic disease curricula improvement, in Health Affairs, The Lancet, Globalization & Health, and Nursing Standard.  Previously, she played a major role in the development of the Oxford Health Alliance’s Community Interventions for Health as part of the study’s evaluation team, based at Matrix Public Health Solutions, Inc. and later at Oxford University. She is a co-author on the resulting toolkit for implementing community interventions to prevent and control chronic diseases, and recently co-authored the book Sick Societies, about the global chronic disease epidemic, both of which will be published by Oxford University Press in 2011. Siegel received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her MPH from Yale School of Public Health. She is co-chair of the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network (yp-CDN), a online community with membership that spans 250 members in 30 countries worldwide.

Curriculum Vitae