Indian researcher decoding diabetes in Australia

According to a recent news report, India accounts for a whopping 49% of the world’s diabetes burden with 72 million cases in 2017 and an estimated 134 million by 2025.Diabetes is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among Australians, approximately 1.2 million people are affected with diabetes. Currently, there are about 600000 Indian migrants in Australia and there is higher prevalence of Diabetes and hospitalization due to its complications among Indian born migrants. Although there are number of studies done in India, Akram Ahmad realised that there is no such data for Indian migrants in Australia.

Akram Ahmad, PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney. Akram, 32, who hails from UP (India). He has earlier worked as an assistant professor at Teerthankar Mahaveer University, Moradabad (UP) and then as a lecturer at UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His educational and professional background is in pharmacy, not a very common subject to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy in. Dr Ahmad, who is one of the most cited researchers, is now studying ways to optimise medication taking in Indian migrants with Type-2 Diabetes. He received several awards including the highly prestigious and competitive International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) and Australian Postgraduate Awards (APA, March 2017) and University of Sydney International Scholarship (USydIS-Strategic, June 2017) from the Commonwealth Government and the University of Sydney to support his PhD study. Akram also awarded the prestigious “Best Promising Researcher Award” from the UCSI University (Malaysia) in 2016 with a prize money of RM 10,000.

In fact, he is currently looking for volunteers who he can fill online survey. The research project is titled “Treatment preferences of Indian migrants with Type 2 diabetes: a discrete choice experiment”. The purpose of this online survey-based study is to investigate people’s preferences for conventional or Ayurvedic medicines for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and investigate what factors could affect people’s preferences.

There were 8 choice tasks based on factors such as side effects of medicines, efficacy, dose frequency, dosage form and cost etc. Only 8-15 min will be taken to complete the online survey.

Akram is hoping to find 200 people to fill the survey for his study. He makes it clear that the information they receive will be anonymous / confidential and will only be used for research purposes. Participants have an opportunity to win one of three $30 Coles online vouchers. Please help him to reach Indian Community in Australia by sharing this post among other Indians in Australia.

Online survey link: https://sydney.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4N4DebsVblr5lL7 

For details, contact Akram Ahmad by email: aahm7538@uni.sydney.edu.au or on phone at 0290369551.