Diabetes Prevalence in India

An overview of Diabetes Prevalence in India | Krea Healthcare Panels

• In India, 32 million people had diabetes in 2000 and it is expected to reach 80 million by 2030 – WHO

• 41 million people had diabetes in 2006 and the same is projected to rise to 70 million by 2025 - The International Diabetes Federation (IDF)

India is the second highest populated country and has the highest number diabetic patients followed by China and USA. Around 50.8 million people in India had diabetes in 2010. The diabetic prevalence is high among Indians (including NRIs) when compared to other ethnic groups. It is very unfortunate that diabetes affects Indians at younger age when compared to the western counterpart. The major factor for this condition is Asian Indian Phenotype - a unique phenotype characterized by increased abdominal obesity and visceral fat despite low body mass index (BMI).

In India, Diabetes prevalence is very much high in urban population and comparatively low in rural population. 11% of the obese, sedentary, urban Indians have diabetes and 0.7% of non-obese, physically active, rural Indian develops diabetes. Prevalence is higher among affluent, educated urban Indian and lower among poor, uneducated rural people. But the scenario in rural India is also changing due to the socio economic transformation.

This no cure condition is a result of aging, obesity, physical inactivity, insulin resistance, stress, food habits and lifestyle. Untreated diabetes lead to Heart and blood vessel disease, Kidney failure, Nerve damage, Eye damage, Foot damage, Osteoporosis and so on. Earlier diagnosis continues medication and changes in lifestyle would certainly help to bring diabetes under control.

Timeline Prevalence of diabetes in different parts of India:

Compiled by:
Meena Ramesh
Desk Researcher
Krea

Sources:
The Diabetes Atlas of India
Diabetes in India
Current Status of Diabetes in India and Need for Novel Therapeutic Agents

Pravin Shekar receives the "Marketing Research Emerging Leader" Award from AMA

AMA Research and Strategy Summit, Orlando, USA

September 2011

Krea is pleased to announce that Pravin Shekar is being honoured with the “Marketing Research Emerging Leader” 4 Under 40 Award by the American Marketing Association (AMA).

This awards stands as a testament to Pravin’s thought-leadership and his continuing efforts to evangelize marketing research, entrepreneurship and towards the creation of a grassroots movement for MR.

***From the American Marketing Association***

The AMA has a long heritage of leadership in the marketing research industry. It is only fitting that, in this period of unprecedented change in the marketing research industry, the AMA honors the next generation of leaders who are shaping the future of our industry.

“The Marketing Research Emerging Leader Award is designed to showcase and recognize the contributions of the next generation of leaders in our industry. These are individuals who are leading change and embracing what’s next. In addition to recognizing past and present accomplishments, our hope is that this award may serve as motivation for other young leaders to push a little harder and reach a little further.”

Recipients for 2011: 

• Amanda Durkee Partner, Zanthus Corporation
• Martijn van Kesteren Manager, Consumer/Shopper Insights, Unilever
• Orlando Wood Managing Director, BrainJuicer Labs
• Pravin Shekar kreator-in-chief, Krea

Krea congratulates all the winners and thanks the American Marketing Association for this honour.

AMA: The awardees: 

• Have consistently demonstrated a commitment to their industry, and the advancement of Marketing Research.
• Are passionate leaders who have a high potential for collaboration and success, including leading by example, mentoring, transferring knowledge, taking a risk to achieve a desired outcome and motivating others.
• Are under 40 years of age at time of nomination.

***

krea: Job opening for Project Managers (Panels, Online Projects)

A blog for a job post! Why not? Time to redefine the boundaries.

Krea is on a scorching growth path and with that comes the need for team building and investing in awesome resources. We are looking for Project Managers to handle all online project requests.

Are you keen to work with a growing company? Are you a fun-loving, boundary-pushing achiever?
If you fit the bill, Krea is the place to be!

Check out the Job spec and apply to hr@krea.in

Project Management (Panels, Online Projects)

Responsibility:

• Project management for assigned projects (multiple concurrent projects – to schedule and budget)

• Timely Quality delivery of projects

• Client management/servicing

• Managing/Liasioning with other departments/vendors

• Ability to identify issues (current and anticipated) and Prompt escalation

• Co-ordinate with clients and teams across time zones

Capability:

• Experience in Online MR/Sampling

• Project Management (specific to MR related projects, minimum one year)

• Router Experience (Hands on experience working with survey router technology)

• Experience in a sample/data collection company

• Superb communication skills and Fluent in English (Read/Speak/Write)

• Advanced knowledge of Excel

Work long, Die sooner!

What drives people to work long hours?


Overload, Peer-pressure, understaffing or simply the need to prove a point!

Staying late has become fashionable. So much so that if any person actually leaves work when he/she is supposed to, they are looked down upon as under-achievers!

“Work while you work, Play while you play”, is an old saying – long forgotten. Now, that an entire generation of young Indians is following a western work-culture and aping certain mannerisms, the associated evils are bound to follow.

A recent news article in the Times of India clearly states “It’s official, long work hours can kill”. The article states the findings from researchers: Working more than 11 hours a day increases the risk of developing heart disease – by 67%.

India is event more vulnerable on the healthcare front. Half of India is young and falls prey to the "long hours in office = quick success" myth.
Now, let us combine long working hours with a sedentary lifestyle, fast-food at odd-times; and throw in hypertension, high cholesterol and smoking/drinking habits – what do we have?

The need to be more aware – and more active.

Spread the message. Work smarter. Play harder.

ESOMAR Congress Overview: Pravin's take

Key Takeaway:

1.       MR is getting democratized. We can’t run away from it (Case in point: DIY research).

2.       Be open to push the boundaries of research (Mass ethnography-DigiViduals, Nielsen Life 360)

3.       Have the consumer at the heart of what you do!

The conference started earlier for me, with the ESOMAR Representatives meeting organized by Helen Parker. The meeting was well attended with a lot of new Reps added to the mix. Gunilla and Finn opened the discussion followed by an update from Kathy Joe. Jennifer Granger then presented the Global Market Research report. Though the MR spend dipped for the first time in a few years now, there is hope! And positive signs! A lively discussion was chaired by David Smith and a bunch of us threw in queries, suggestions and action items. Finn Raben mentioned that ESOMAR wants to go more local in spreading research standards and in propagating research. To this effect, I am confident of a regional forum for us to plan local events (meetups, workshops) with shared costs and sponsors. (Pictures at www.tiny.cc/esomarrep). 

Ask the experts session was a new introduction this year and gave an opportunity to interact one-on-one with experts (Semiotics, Neuroscience, WOM). I went to the discussion with the ESOMAR President Gunilla Broadbent who provided an overview and responded to queries. 

The welcome reception was packed and the highlight was the official launch of Ray Poynter’s book (Handbook of Online and Social Media Research). Relevant and much-need for students and young researchers. I am sure this will be a big hit across universities in APAC as well. I have known Ray for quite some time now and it was an honour to buy his autographed book at the Congress. The reception was followed by the e-Rewards and the Askia parties! – great to have fun and network with fellow researchers from around the globe.

The sessions at the Congress seemed packed and all the ones I wanted to attend seemed to be planned at the same time in parallel halls! Hence, I missed a few of the talks (amd am only covering those that I attended). The interactive session on DIY (chaired by Andre Linden) was followed by presentations from David Bakken and Richard Thornton. The lively debate/discussion before and after the speaker sessions was well planned out. DIY is considered a major threat by the traditionalists and democratization by others! Incidentally, David’s paper (Only the paranoid survive) won the best paper at the Congress.

Helen Parker (ESOMAR) assisted me in organizing a country-lunch and it was good to meet and discuss with fellow Indian researchers about the conference and action points.

Post-lunch, it was the Pecha Kucha session where I was a speaker as well. Rapid-fire 20-second slides and smooth flow marked this session. The message from Patrick Young on the need for storytelling to present results resonates with relevance.

I liked the “What the buzz!” presentation by Kristin Hickey, especially the need for researchers to get a grasp of the brand buzz, differentiation from clutter and its measurement – in a social media age. From the paper: “Brand BUZZ is new to marketing and therefore needs its own definition, set of measurement tools and understanding.”

Research Superstar – as always was to ensure the research community drops the ‘serious/conservative’ veil and takes a dig at ourselves. Very good performances by Sophy, Richard Casper and Will Goodhand; and Will won the crown on the second day. As a part of the jury, Simon Chadwick, Adam Philips and yours truly had a ball as well.

Digital Ethnography in FIFA 2010, the multi-modal approach paper by Dave King and Hala Matowska. This project has pushed earlier thresholds for methods and overall complexity. A study across multiple screens (TV, Internet and Mobile) with a diary study built in (420 South Africans provided with BlackBerry phones).

Science-Fiction: Another paper I enjoyed was John Kearon and Peter Harrison’s Online segmentation for insight generation. Parts of the paper sounded like science-fiction to me, except for the fact that these were live projects (with real clientsJ).  In this huge and diverse web, how can individuals or segments be identified? Insights generated? This is the basic premise of the paper and John delved into Sentiment analysis and netnography as key modes for answers. DigiViduals was a BrainJuicer product that was demo-ed – online robotic researchers searching social media sites for pictures, references, songs, blogs etc to create a persona! An example of mass ethonography as one of the ways forward!

The Talent Contest: It was a pleasure to listen the young researchers: Hannah, Catherine and Abhishek Sharma. All three of them were impressive in their own way. Such an event serves as encouragement to younger researchers and assists in the creation of a grassroots movement – to bring more into the fold of marketing research.

Finishing keynote: Paul Marsden was the speaker and my TOM response was “Bodybuilder”!. He spoke about simplifying research….and the fact that research is prevalent and a part of our everyday decision making process. We just need more glamour!

All in all: Lots of new faces. Younger researchers in attendance. And new messages/methodologies!

All this bodes well for research and I look forward to work towards more local events for research – and of course, the APAC conference in Melbourne next year.

Pravin Shekar

kreator-in-chief, krea

ESOMAR Representative for India

Sampling in the ICE age

A report by Teresa Lynch, mrweb
http://www.mrweb.com/mrt/sam10ejun.htm

Sampling in the ICE Age

A number of the world’s biggest online sample providers have announced they are working together with the market research SaaS company Imperium on a system which prevents respondents answering the same category of interview too frequently. Members constitute around 50% of all sample available globally, so what effect will the move have on those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘out’?
 

The Imperium Category Exclusion (ICE) User Group is not a closed shop - it’s open to any panel providing company. Nevertheless we’d expect to find differences in the views of someone very much ‘in’ - say, Marshall C Harrison, Founder and CEO of Imperium - and someone who is currently ‘out’, in this case Pravin Shekar, kreator-in-chief at Indian consumer panel firm Krea.
 

Both are basically agreed that ICE is a very good idea. Harrison explains that the new initiative is in addition to the software services Imperium already offer not only to sample providers but also full service agencies and end user companies. These include branded products which variously de-dupe sample by digital fingerprinting, check respondents demographics against other databases (currently only in the US) and capture users' online experience of web sites. ICE is an extension of the first of these which utilizes the same digital fingerprinting technology to identify respondents who have completed an interview in a specific category (for example home shopping or health insurance) within a given time period. Marshall does envisage companies which use ICE advertising to their own clients on their web site that they 'are certified by ICE'.
 

So will this become some sort of 'kite mark' to which other companies must subscribe? According to Pravin Shekar, 'The panel business does not have too many distinct long term points of differentiation....therefore this move towards digital fingerprinting...is a good one to get the base standards in.' However he also makes the point that there ought to be an industry standard (perhaps the long awaited CASRO one) rather than firms favouring one product offering from one company. He also mentions other companies involved in the same type of offering such as Peanut Labs with their OptimusID product; and advances the idea that digital fingerprinting also has some 'local issues with PII and intrusion of privacy'.
 

Marshall is confident that Imperium is 'cognisant about privacy rules and regulations' and that their clients are 'conscious of the law' in relation to any product they would use in conjunction with their panel. And it is hard to see how checking that people are who they say they are and have completed the interviews they say they have need infringe their rights in any way when all panels are run on a strictly 'opt in' basis.
 

Will some companies feel pressure to join this new initiative? And what are some of the 'local issues' that maybe a higher authority such as CASRO or ESOMAR should address? We'd be interested to hear your view.

One Missed Call: A new language in itself!

What do you think is the most common method of communication among the youth today?

SMS’, Mobile phone calls, Facebook messages, Orkut scraps, MMSs, Voice mails all are losing out to a mode which does not even figure on the list.

How does one contact the friend who’s inside his house when you are standing outside but you don’t want to waste a call on it as well? Yes, you guessed right, you give him a missed call. This highly popular mode of communication now figures among one of the constants of teenage life. How do you know if your girlfriend’s dad is around or not? You give her a missed call and if she gives you one back, it’s safe! This is a foolproof method as it eliminates risk and at the same time is pocket friendly.

How else is it used? There are much better examples as well. What do you do when your money runs out and you need back up? There is only one eternal saviour at all those times (and if you are at college, those times do come, often!!). That individual is called Dad! And how do you contact him? Of course, you give him a missed call and he will call you back, as is his duty to. Almost the whole lot of students at university never ever call home. They always give missed calls and the poor folks at home have to call back.

This rapidly increasing segment of the mobile using population has users among the senior population as well. Grandpas and Grandmas are also giving missed calls to their middle aged wards to get them to call back. And if you think that’s all you are gravely mistaken. How do you get your friend in the other row to look at you when you want to share a private joke about the professor? You give him a missed call and he will promptly turn and look at you.

These are just a few examples of how a simple thing such as a missed call influences the life of a teenager (and a wider diaspora as well). There may be other instances where the missed call is used and of which we might have no idea at all.

If such is the situation, how do we know what a teenager thinks, what he might use at what stage and what he might shun? What is evident from such phenomenon is that a one size fits all just doesn’t work across all parts of the population.

Therein lays the challenge for the researcher!

***

Sairam Krishnan

www.krea.in

krea: An India-centric Online research firm with a focus on Healthcare, Youth and Mobile.