Welcome to my new blog, The Chronic Scholar! Here I will be bringing what I learn through my PhD program in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago to you!
I’m thankful for this opportunity to bring together patient experience and advocacy and the research that talks about it! Got questions? So do I! Let’s ask them together.
Here is my first question…
According the Google Ngram, diabetes and disability are two words that have almost the exact same incidence of mention in literature since the 1800’s. Why is this such?
So, patient advocates, why could this be? What are the bumps from, and why has our focus shifted so much?
I’m Heather and as your Chronic Scholar, I can’t wait to figure out why…
The Chronic Scholar 
That’s an amazing chart! You ask why the intriguing mapping of diabetes and disability. My guess would be that, while diabetes is a disease, like heart disease, cancer, etc., folks with diabetes LIVE a long time and suffer a lot of disability. With heart disease or cancer, people get very sick and then die. With diabetes, we live a long time and often develop a lot of disabilities. Perhaps we should consider diabetes simply a disability with a lot of concurrent other disabilities?
GREAT website … thanks so much!
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