Pacific Cultures researchers meet with Tuvalu community group

In November, as part of the community engagement of the ‘Pacific Cultures: Building blocks for a socially-involved and co-created approach to brain health among older adults’ project, researchers met with the Tuvalu community group.

The meeting was held on World Diabetes Day (November 14), and the talk centred on this year’s awareness theme: Know your risk, Know your response.

The team also embraced their creativity, putting a local spin on the artwork for the event by augmenting the World Diabetes Day logo of a blue circle to a circle of forget-me-not flowers – a flower indigenous to the Chatham Islands. The beautiful message in the name of the flower is a reminder that we can always continue to advocate through our research for better public health approaches, care models, and services for people living with diabetes.

The discussions with the Tuvalu group were very lively and engaging. In particular, the Q&A session tied into brain health, dementia, and the impact on the brain of diabetes and other diseases.

Research for the Pacific Cultures project is still ongoing and will be completed in mid 2024.

To learn more about the Pacific Cultures project, please visit the project’s research page.