Why MIKE Program?
We exist because chronic disease conditions including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and risky behaviors [alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs and other risky social behaviors] are increasingly impacting our children, especially low income and minority children, and are expected to contribute to the epidemic of chronic kidney failure. Tragically, although fully 70% of chronic kidney failure is preventable, it and the conditions leading to it sap the well-being of the affected individuals, their families, and society.
The problem of kidney failure related to preventable causes, especially diabetes and high blood pressure, is getting worse. Nationally, in the United States, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders develop these conditions with greater frequency than do others. For example, depressed kidney function is three times as likely to lead to kidney failure in African Americans than in comparable European American people. Latinos, almost twice as likely to develop diabetes as are comparable Europeans, are six times as likely to develop depressed kidney function from diabetes once they have diabetes. The reasons are complex but reflect a massive public health concern.
To reverse this trend MIKE Program reaches young people at a time when their health options have the greatest chance to effect meaningful change.
To increase access to culturally inclusive health care, MIKE Program teams community and health professions students with youth. Both the teens and these near-age mentors participate in an inspire:aspire relationship to enhance and diversify our next generation of health care providers.
MIKE Program is aimed at all of society, but especially youth at greatest risk of preventable kidney failure.
What We Do
- Team youth with volunteers and health professionals to promote healthy lifestyles through peer education and community outreach.
- Work in partnership with other youth programs to increase community participation and communicate the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
- Bring the health care community and youth in contact in a supportive environment of mutual understanding.
- Test the assumption that over time it is youth who best will communicate a message of health in their broader communities.
Who We Serve
A call to action by the National Institute of Health in “Healthy People 2010” for the first time identified protecting kidney function as a national priority. A recent study estimates 26 million people in the United States have chronic kidney disease (CKD) and that 20 million others are at risk of chronic kidney disease.
That’s 46 million people at risk in the United States.
Who is at Risk?
We all are at risk, but a disproportionate number are people of color, or those without rich social resources or who live in poverty. Like other complications of vascular disease such as heart attacks and strokes, kidney complications are getting worse. The rate those other vascular outcomes are getting worse is slowing down somewhat. The rate is holding steady or increasing in some populations for kidney outcomes. At the current rate of progression to kidney failure it is estimated that by 2020, 500,000 people in the United States will receive kidney dialysis treatment and another 250,000 will receive treatment for kidney failure with a kidney transplant. Seventy percent of CKD potentially is preventable by controlling or preventing such conditions as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, with a further percentage potentially preventable by avoiding risky behaviors and avoiding or early treatment of some common infectious diseases.
Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure increasingly are striking our young people. The stage is set for the complications from these diseases to hit some 20 to 40 years earlier in an individual’s lifetime than seen previously. Kidney failure is no longer a death sentence. There are options for treatment such as dialysis and transplantation. However wouldn’t it be better to be aware of the causes and then apply, adopt, and advocate for healthier outcomes? Wouldn’t it be better to prevent the loss of potential to self and society that CKD imposes?