Redefining Diabetes and Creating Solutions—The Hong Kong Diabetes Register: Kelly West Award Lecture 2025

What is it about?

A 2-yearly diabetes structured assesment program (eye, eye, feet, blood, urine) pioneered in Hong Kong in 1995 has led to the creation of the Hong Kong Diabetes Register (HKDR) which had scaled into a territory-wide diabetes risk assessment and management program in 2000 and benefitted 0.8 million people with diabetes and contributed to 50-70% reduction in diabetes complicatons and related death rate over the last 3 decades, The HKDR accompanied by a biobnak has provided the platform for building a multidisciplinary team including care professionals, community workers, clinician and data scientsits working synergistically to reveal the Asian diabetes phenotype characterised by low body weight, excess body fat, poor beta-cell function and high risk for young onset diabetes and chronic kidney disease. The multidimensional causes including genetic factors and patients' concerns discoverd by this program have provided the basis for a territory-wide precision prevention and care program for young onset diabetes using biogenetic markers, digital tools and multidisciplinary care. The evolution of the HKDR to the web-based Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluation (JADE) Platform in 2007 complete with protocol for assessment and risk alogrithms for issue of personalized report with decision support has provided a platform for conducting research in pursuit of prediction, prevention, classification and treatment of diabetes with precision, quality and value.

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