November 17, 2013 | Read Time: 1 minute
Managing Type 1 diabetes isn’t easy. A new text-message campaign created by JDRF for diabetes-awareness month is designed to improve public understanding of what it’s like to live with the disease.
People who sign up for T1D for a Day receive a series of text messages over 24 hours from Sean Busby, a professional snowboarder, that describe how glucose testing, insulin injections, and having to carefully consider food choices shapes his days.
For example, around noontime—at the beginning of the process, people are asked to text their time zones—campaign participants receive a message from Mr. Busby that says, “Too much to do for a sit-down lunch & I had that snack not too long ago. Grabbing some leftover soup for lunch. Still have to test. 113. Okay.”
The organization decided to focus on mobile technology because most adults now have a cellphone with them at all times, says Peter Cleary, vice president for communications at JDRF: “If it was just an email campaign, people might not pay as close attention to it.”
More than 3,500 people signed up for the campaign in the first 24 hours.
For more information: Go to jdrf.org.
