June 10, 2026 From Global Summit to Systems Change

Stigma is one of the most common — and least visible — barriers in diabetes.  

It shapes how people are treated in health care, how policies are designed, and how society assigns blame. It affects whether someone seeks care, follows treatment, or feels safe speaking openly about their condition.  

At the Global Summit to End Diabetes Stigma this past March, Diabetes Canada was proud to join 200+ people from 40+ countries and share our insights from our national initiative, Change the Conversation, sponsor the summit and support Canadians with lived experience to share their voices on this global change. (Laura Syron, President and CEO of Diabetes Canada, shared a recap of her experience on her LinkedIn newsletter, Unmasking Diabetes.)

More than 200 people attended the Global Summit to End Diabetes Stigma in Jaipur, India.

With more than 150 contributions (from research to real-world stories from over 70 countries around the world) the most powerful moments at the Global Summit didn’t come from a single presentation or statistics. They came from the repetition: 

Different countries. Different systems. Different lives. The same pattern. 

People described what it feels like to be treated as responsible for their diagnosis — blamed, judged, reduced to a cautionary tale rather than seen as a person managing a complex condition. 

That pattern is not isolated. 
 
It is global — and it demands attention. 

As global momentum to address diabetes stigma continues to grow, partners in the UK are showing up for Diabetes Week between June 8–14, sharing stories from the Diabetes UK community and practical information on how to address stigma and its harmful effects in workplaces and healthcare settings.  

Global partner, Andy Broomhead, Head of Communities & Volunteering at Diabetes UK meet the author at the Global Summit to End Diabetes Stigma. 

This moment presents an opportunity to align with global efforts and bring these conversations forward in a Canadian context. 

What stigma actually looks like 

Stigma does not live in one place. It operates across everyday life — subtly, persistently, and cumulatively. It shows up in:  

• Public conversation that frames diabetes as a personal failure or a “lifestyle disease” 
• Workplaces, where people may hide their condition to avoid judgment  
• Healthcare interactions that prioritize compliance over understanding  

Over time, these experiences shape behaviour. They influence whether someone seeks care, asks for support, or feels safe being visible. 

The weight of evidence: this is not harmless 

At the summit, I learned that, globally, up to 4 in 5 people with diabetes report experiencing stigma, and 1 in 3 experience discrimination related to their diabetes. 

In Canada, the evidence reflects this. Diabetes Canada’s Social Experiences of Living with Diabetes in Canada report (2024) showed that:  

• Nearly 90% of people living with type 1 diabetes and nearly 70% of people living with type 2 diabetes experience shame and blame for having diabetes. 

• More than half of people with type 1 diabetes and one-third of people with type 2 diabetes have been treated differently because of their diabetes.  

• 40% of people with type 1 diabetes and nearly 60% of people with type 2 diabetes never or rarely ask for support to help manage their diabetes when they need it. 
   

These experiences of stigma are not just hurtful — they are harmful. These experiences impact people’s overall health and quality of life, because stigma is linked to:  

• Skipping or delaying medication and care
• Avoiding healthcare appointments  
• Worse clinical outcomes and complications  
• Increased anxiety, stress, and isolation 

As Diabetes Canada’s national work has reinforced, stigma shapes experiences not only at the individual level — but across healthcare, workplaces, and broader social systems. 

Global partners, Laura Klinker, Oria James, Shusmita Rashid and Janina Gaudin met on site in Jaipur, India.

The system behind the stigma  

If the summit made anything clear, it’s that stigma doesn’t just “happen”.  

It is produced and reinforced through systems. The way diabetes is talked about influences how people are perceived. 
 
That perception shapes interactions. 
 
Those interactions, over time, become embedded in policies, practices and environments. 

This creates a reinforcing cycle: 

• Narratives — how diabetes is understood and talked about 
• Practices — how people behave and interact 
• Systems — how environments, policies and incentives are designed 

When narratives are rooted in blame, practices follow. 

When practices normalize judgment, systems embed it. 

Why good intentions aren’t enough  

There has been important global progress to improve how we talk about diabetes. Efforts like Diabetes Canada’s Language Matters have helped shift away from blame-based terms toward more respectful, person-centred language.  

But awareness alone does not change experience. The summit made something clear:  

Changing words without changing behaviours and systems is not enough. 

When society tells a narrow story — that diabetes is primarily the result of personal choices — it becomes easier to justify judgment. 

It becomes easier to design policies that emphasize individual over shared responsibility.  

That framing has consequences.  

And it becomes harder for people living with diabetes to feel safe, supported, or understood. 

Canadian representation at the Global Summit. Back row: Laura Syron, Ciara Stevens, Shailesh Desai, Brit Hancock, Ryan Hooey, Najeeb Ashraf; Front row: Oria James, Laurie Lépine, Irene Samuel, Shusmita Rashid, Roslynn (Roz) Baird, Anmol Budhiraja, Linxi Mytkolli, Al Martin. 

At the summit, international researchers describe this blame‑based narrative as a persistent driver of stigma across countries. 

But the event also offered a caution that deserves attention: even well‑intentioned stigma messaging can backfire.  

If we focus only on damage and deficit — if the public hears only “failure”, “risk”, “burden” — we can unintentionally reinforce the same stereotypes we’re trying to dismantle. 

What a better approach looks like 

Changing the conversation requires more than shifting language; it requires shifting how we understand and act on diabetes. 

At its core, this work is about changing three things simultaneously: 

1. the values that shape beliefs,
2. the beliefs that shape attitudes, 
3. and the language that reflects and reinforces them. 

That shift starts with lived experience — not as an add-on, but as the anchor. 

It means replacing blame with accuracy, and replacing simplistic narratives with the reality that diabetes is shaped by biology, environment and social factors, not moral worth. 

That’s why it is essential that:  

• All messaging is informed by people with lived experience  
• We reflect how individuals want to be identified and represented  
• We use strengths-based, empowering narratives alongside real challenges 
• We share stories that highlight resilience, capability and agency 

But the summit didn’t just ask us to change our words. It demanded we change the story, and then change what systems do with that story. 

Diabetes Canada’s Change the Conversation exists for that exact shift.   

Through Change the Conversation, Diabetes Canada is adapting and applying global insights in ways thatreflect experiences in Canada — ensuring that awareness efforts translate into meaningful changes across workplaces, healthcare, and everyday interactions.  

That means:  

• Supporting workplaces to take practical, sustained action to reduce stigma and enhance supports for people with diabetes and those that care for them 
• Working with healthcare providers to improve how care is experienced  
• Shifting public narratives to reflect empathy, accuracy, and shared responsibility  

And doing so in a way that:  

• Ensures people with lived experience are ongoing partners in design and delivery 
• Avoids reinforcing stigma through the very messages we share  
• Uses compelling, strengths-based storytelling to inspire change 

Because meaningful change is not linear — it requires shifts in conversation, behaviour, and systems happening together, each reinforcing the other. 

 

As global conversations on diabetes stigma continue to grow, this is an opportunity to reflect on how these issues show up in Canada — and what it will take to change them.
 

To learn more about Diabetes Canada's work to address diabetes stigma, please visit diabetes.ca/changetheconversation.