What should governments be doing to prevent diabetes throughout the life course?

Abstract

Health systems and governments are increasingly required to implement measures that target at-risk populations to prevent noncommunicable diseases. In this review we lay out what governments should be doing to prevent diabetes throughout the life course. The following four target groups were used to structure the specific recommendations: (1) pregnant women and young families, (2) children and adolescents, (3) working age population, and (4) the elderly. The evidence to date supports the effectiveness of some known government policy measures, such as sugar taxes and regulatory measures in the (pre-)school setting for children and adolescents. Many of these appear to be more effective if they are part of a bundle of strategies and if they are supplemented by communication strategies. Although there is a current focus on strategies that target the individual, governments can make use of evidence-based population-level prevention strategies. More research and continuous evaluation of the overall and subgroup-specific effectiveness of policy strategies using high-quality longitudinal studies are needed.