Novel Model for South Asian Treatment in Diabetes (NaMaSTe-Diabetes) Trial in Primary Care

South Asians (SA) living in Canada and globally have high rates of type 2 diabetes (diabetes). Despite the burden of diabetes in this population, diabetes management remains poor. SA patients are less likely to exercise, follow a healthy diet (4), participate in exercise programs (5), and are 24% less likely to achieve glucose, blood pressure and lipid targets for diabetes than the general population (6). 55-60% of SA patients were non-adherent to their diabetes life-saving medications, compared to 30-35% non-adherence in the general population (7). This large gap in diabetes care is not surprising given language and communication barriers between primary care providers and SA patients (8-10), lack of knowledge about diabetes (8-11), preference for alternative therapies (12-14) and fundamentally different cultural beliefs on diabetes and diabetes management (15-18). Although there is some preliminary evidence that culturally tailored, chronic disease models may improve outcomes (21-24), the current evidence base is insufficient to justify the system modifications required to provide culturally tailored care across primary care settings in Canada. We propose to conduct a randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of a novel culturally tailored lifestyle and medication adherence intervention in SA patients with poorly controlled diabetes. The study is called the Novel Model for South Asian diabetes Treatment (NaMaSTe-Diabetes) trial in primary care.