Local seniors in the Champaign-Urbana area now have access to diabetes and prediabetes screening activities at the Champaign Urbana Public Health District.

CUPHD received an award of $2,500 from Medicare Diabetes Screening Project to spread awareness about the importance of screening activities for diabetes and how to prevent it.

Nikki Hillier, program coordinator at CUPHD, said the public health district received the award after applying for a grant at Medicare.

To increase awareness among seniors, CUPHD is using the award money to set up a campaign using comprehensive marketing strategies.

“For the campaign, we have a series of signage – banners, posters – that we are going to put up in different places of trust like waiting rooms of medical centers, different pharmacies,” said Lori A. Holmes, spokeswoman for CUPHD.

CUPHD researched on what messages would be received the best when it comes to promoting the campaign.

They also conducted an online survey to find out how aware local seniors are about the Medicare diabetes screening benefits and how they can use these benefits.

“We had a great response to the survey online, and hopefully we’ll get a good response to the campaign messages as well,” Hillier said.

This campaign coincides with American Diabetes Month, which is November, and CUPHD plans to display these campaign messages on or before the World Diabetes Day on Nov. 14.

Local seniors who may or may not be diabetes-prone want to take advantage of the campaign and the diabetes screening activities.

“Diabetes runs in my family so I’m prone to being diabetic, so I will definitely check out this campaign and the activities,” said Timothy Lancer, local senior in the Champaign-Urbana area.

While this diabetes awareness campaign is mainly targeted at seniors in the Champaign-Urbana area, Hillier said that younger people with diabetes or who are prone to diabetes can also ask for help.

“Diabetes is obviously a prevalent disease, but we want to tell (people) that it can be controlled,” Holmes said.