By Charlene Muhammad, California Black Media
Crystal Lambert knew something was terribly wrong with her three-year-old granddaughter as she sped down the street trying to get her to the hospital.
“I thought she got a hold of some poison,” Lambert recalled.
Doctors found Lambert’s granddaughter had a blood sugar level over 800, diagnosing her with Diabetic Ketoacidosis(DKA), a state in which the body, starved of insulin, begins to shut down.
Lambert said she was born with a pancreas that was not fully functioning — it lacked the specialized cells required to produce insulin.
Her granddaughter survived and is five years old today. Now, she gives herself insulin shots, asks endless questions about her condition, and runs like the spirited child she is. But the terror of that night transformed Lambert — and ultimately inspired her to launch the We Fight Back Organization, a mobile health and food access initiative serving underserved communities across California. Lambert is the executive director.
The Crisis by the Numbers
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, nearly 17.9% of Black adults in California have been diagnosed with diabetes — above the national Black adult average of 16.8%, and nearly five points higher than California’s overall adult rate of 12.6% across all races. California ranks 24th out of 39 states with available data for Black adult diabetes rates.
Nationally, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Black Americans were 24% more likely than the overall U.S. population to have diabetes in 2024. They also died from diabetes 78% more often than the general population in 2022. Black Americans are also more than twice as likely as the overall population to develop kidney failure caused by diabetes.
According to the California Health Care Foundation’s 2024 Health Disparities Almanac, Black Californians have the shortest life expectancy in the state at just 74.6 years — due in part to chronic conditions like diabetes and its devastating complications.
Leon Rock, co-founder of the African American Diabetes Association, believes statistics, though revealing, only tell part of the story.
“There are a whole bunch of Black folks that don’t tell you that they have diabetes — or don’t know,” he said.
And the disease itself, Rock is careful to note, is not what kills. “They die from the complications. That’s heart attack, that’s stroke, that’s amputations of legs, of feet. Going blind. All those complications are inherent in a system that has impacted Black folks with diabetes in California and across America.”
An Information Gap Fuels the Crisis
For Rock, part of the solution is diagnosis. He says the medical and public health systems are failing Black Californians by the absence of information designed for them.
“That is the bottom line. We need good information. Information that is culturally specific,” said Rock.
Telling people to eat healthy or exercise, he added, falls short when culturally specific alternatives are not provided, and when many residents of urban communities do not feel safe exercising in some neighborhoods – or outside at night.
Dr. Khadijah Lang, a family medicine physician and president of the Golden State Medical Association, agrees that the roots of the crisis run deeper than individual behavior — and blaming patients misses the point.
“We are not genetically predisposed to diabetes,” Lang said. “But the system under which we live increases the likelihood that we will develop it.”
What the Body Needs — What Communities Are Denied
Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90 to 95% of all diabetes cases, according to the CDC, develops when the body can no longer use insulin effectively to regulate blood sugar. Left unmanaged, it damages nerves, kidneys, eyes, and the cardiovascular system. The hemoglobin A1C test is a blood draw that reveals how the body has processed sugar over the previous three months — not just at the moment of the test. It is the standard tool for both diagnosis and ongoing monitoring.
That distinction matters, Lang emphasized, because patients cannot manipulate three months of blood sugar history the way they might fast for a day before a single blood draw.
“The pill is not meant to undo or control a sugar level that’s being constantly stressed,” Lang said. “It’s meant to work in conjunction with a low-carbohydrate diet and exercise.” She recommended at minimum 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week — breakable into 10-minute sessions for those who need it.
Lang stressed that education must be delivered in language people recognize and can relate to. The goal is to inform them of the choices that serve their health best, she said.
But for many Black Californians, even those informed choices remain out of reach, Lambert said.
“They need access to healthy foods and medication, too” she said.
California has made some critical policy advances. The state has expanded access to the Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), which has transformed diabetes care for state residents. Assembly Bill 365, introduced in 2024, proposed requiring Medi-Cal to cover the costs of CGM and other related medical equipment but it failed in the State Senate. Since then, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) reports that the core Medi-Cal CGM benefit now available to eligible patients was solidified through previous budget actions and pharmacy policy updates.
These measures, while meaningful, have not closed the gap for the communities most at risk, according to advocates.
Control Through Community
Health care advocates conclude that the solution must be communal, culturally grounded, and sustained — not a fad, not a celebrity moment, not a single clinic visit. For example, observed Lang, lifestyle shaped by shared values and collective accountability can move the needle where individual prescriptions have not.
Rock is building infrastructure to match the urgency, establishing local chapters of the African American Diabetes Association across the country, with California next.
“We have to do for self, period,” he said. “Health is wealth. We have to eat to live.”
And Lambert, whose granddaughter unknowingly started all of this for her, keeps showing up.
“Diabetes advocacy is about dignity, education, prevention, and hope,” she said.
Video: Diabetes Disparity Exposed in California
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