Lifescan Launches Diabetes Awareness Media Campaign Targeting Hispanics.

LifeScan, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company and the maker of OneTouch Ultra Blood Glucose Monitoring System, today launched a three-city media tour as part of a national news media campaign targeting the Hispanic community with facts and information about the importance of diabetes management and blood glucose monitoring.

Statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health show that Hispanics are at a higher risk of developing and dying from diabetes, and twice as likely as other populations to experience complications such as heart disease, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney disease, amputations and nerve damage.

“A lot of recent media coverage has focused on generating awareness about the growing diabetes epidemic within the Hispanic community,” said, Jeff Christensen, Communications Manager at LifeScan. “Our goal is to provide information about diabetes management to those in the Hispanic community already struggling with this disease—information on diabetes management skills and things like blood glucose testing and its relationship to diet, medication and physical activity.”

Impetus for this campaign comes from the ongoing need to provide in-language information to Hispanics as well as a recent study by the American Association of

In addition to the three-city media tour, for which medical experts will be available in Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami for media interviews, outreach will be conducted in other Hispanic markets in the U.S. LifeScan will distribute articles bylined by diabetes experts and bilingual backgrounders on diabetes-related topics to the news media, offer healthcare professionals for radio, TV and print interviews, and provide other support for Hispanic media seeking to develop editorial stories on this topic.