A Young Adult’s Life with Diabetes Based on a Social Ecological Model

Abstract

Young people with diabetes in Korea face a healthcare transition from adolescence to adulthood, involving various management tasks. Imagine a patient who is struggling to stay on track with their glycemic control at a time in their life when they are also struggling to fulfill their life cycle tasks, we must consider disease management from the perspective of the individual. There are many factors that result in health inequality being regarded as an individual problem, and they may be difficult for individuals to overcome. However, most hospitals have limited approaches to account for individual factors of diabetics. Known limitations in socio-ecological approaches to diabetes care are based on such factors as limited personnel, limitations in community resource collection, differences in accessibility, and personnel work load. We performed this review of an approach that considers personal characteristics to help young diabetics secure a healthy life expectancy in cooperation with government policies.