Summer camps can offer many benefits for children living with diabetes.

For many children, summer camp is a great opportunity for making connections, staying active, and offering continuous learning throughout the months they’re not in school.

However, according to a recent study, Black and Latino children are often underrepresented at summer camps.

“Racial disparities exist in many aspects of diabetes care and outcomes, including diabetes camp attendance. Therefore, we need to identify what the barriers are and address them to make camp attendance more inclusive,” Risa M. Wolf, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Medicine, told Healio.

Wolf and colleagues evaluated the 2018 summer camp registrations of 48 different ADA summer camp programs. From these registrations, they evaluated the “racial and ethnic makeup, continuous glucose monitor usage, insulin delivery technique, camp type, and financial aid requirements.”

Their Findings

• 83.7% of the 5,256 campers were white.
• Day camps vs. residential camps: 31.9% of Hispanic children, 23.3% of Black children, and 20% of white children attended day camps vs. residential camps.
• Financial aid: 65.6% of Black children, 48.1% of Hispanic children, and 24.3% of white children applied for financial aid to attend the camp.
• Pump Insulin Delivery: 76.4% of white children, 60.3% of Hispanic children, and 39.1% of Black children used a pump for insulin delivery.
• CGM Insulin Delivery: 61% of white children, 46.1% of Hispanic children, and 23.4% of Black children used CGMs for insulin delivery. 

From this analysis, we see much more representation of white children in summer camps, who are also less likely to need financial assistance to attend summer camps. Overall, white children hare more likely to use pumps and CGMs for insulin delivery, which is often more accessible to people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

To make summer camps more obtainable for all, last year the ADA created a summer camp in Baltimore that had lower registration costs. This resulted in 31% of Black and Latino children in attendance (a 14.7% increase). While this year, due to COVID, the ADA is offering a virtual summer camp, known as Imagine Camp, which is free to join

Additionally, DiabetesEd Services will be developing a program in which we offer scholarships to cover the fees for future summer camps.

Written by Bryanna, our Director of Operations & Customer Happiness

To read more click here for the Helio article and click here for the study.

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