About 12% of Americans have diabetes, but most of them do not know it. That is not a statistic Dr. Toussaint Mears-Clarke recites from a distance. It is the reality he navigates every day as a board-certified family physician and Fellowship Program Director at Methodist Hospital of Sacramento. For him, the gap between diagnosis and awareness is not a medical footnote. It is a community crisis with a clear solution.
“This is the type of disease that you will not feel that you actually have,” he told rolling out. “You have almost no symptoms until it might be too late.”
Why so many people avoid testing for diabetes
Dr. Mears-Clarke understands why people resist finding out. The fear of a diagnosis, the disruption it implies, the weight of having to change a life already stretched thin, are all real barriers.
“A lot of people are almost afraid to know that they have something,” he said. “Getting tested feels like an unachievable obstacle for many of us.”…