1. What is the outcome of interest? The outcome of interest for my epidemiological project is the prevalence of diabetes in a national (United States) population and how factors such as race, geographic location, and time impact the outcome.2 . Define and briefly describe your outcome. You may want to do a little research into some of the characteristics of your result. For example, what is diabetes? Or, how do we define HIV cases and what are some of the health implications? Diabetes is a disease in which blood sugar (or glucose) levels are higher than they should be in a normal person. Through various biological processes, our body turns carbohydrates into glucose, or sugar, to use as energy. The pancreas, an organ located near the stomach, produces a hormone called insulin to help glucose enter our body's cells. With diabetes, your body doesn't make enough insulin or can't use its own insulin as it should. This causes a buildup of sugar in the blood (Basics about Diabetes, 2012). Although there are three different types of diabetes (type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and gestational diabetes), men and women can develop diabetes at any age. Type 1 diabetes, once called juvenile diabetes, usually develops in young people; but type 1 diabetes can also develop in adults. In type 1 diabetes, the body no longer produces insulin or does not produce enough insulin because the body's immune system and other harmful substances have attacked and destroyed the cells that produce insulin (Basics about Diabetes, 2012). Type 2 diabetes, once called “adult-onset diabetes,” can affect people of any age, even children. However, type 2 diabetes develops more often in middle-aged and older people. Overweight and inactive people are also more likely to develop it. In type 2 diabetes, fat, muscle, and liver cells do not use insulin to transport glucose into the body's cells to be used for energy, a term referred to as insulin resistance. While the pancreas initially keeps up with the additional demand by producing more insulin, over time, the pancreas does not produce enough insulin as blood sugar levels rise (Diabetes Fact Sheet, 2011). Gestational diabetes can develop when a woman is pregnant. Pregnant women produce hormones that can lead to insulin resistance. All women experience insulin resistance at the end of pregnancy. If the pancreas does not produce enough insulin during pregnancy, the woman develops gestational diabetes.