TuAnalyze puts diabetes on the map

BERKELEY, Calif. A nonprofit organization's Web site -- which connects people touched by diabetes and raises diabetes awareness -- and a children's hospital have developed an app that measures and shares blood glucose levels.

Diabetes Hands Foundation's TuDiabetes.org and Children's Hospital Boston have launched TuAnalyze, which supports sharing of diabetes information throughout the community and feedback of community-level diabetes information to users.

How it works: the information submitted by members will be displayed in a map of the United States on the TuDiabetes network, with states lighting up according to the aggregate A1c data. Once a threshold of participants in each state is reached, the state’s color reflects whether the average A1c submitted is within the range recommended by physicians. Users can compare personal measures of diabetes to community measures on the TuAnalyze map.

“Many people are turning to the Internet for information, support, and resources to help manage their disease on a day by day basis,” said principal TuAnalyze investigator Kenneth Mandl, who also serves as a faculty member of the informatics program at Children’s Hospital Boston. “With TuAnalyze we aim to collect and share basic information people provide in a secure, structured way that will be beneficial to the community -- so each member can learn more about themselves and their peers -- and in a way that may inform public health endeavors and research.”

TuAnalyze was developed with support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.