Award: CAMPAIGN \ C21. Healthcare: Ethical

In China, Type 1 diabetes (T1D) carries a stigma so deep that patient storytelling, standard practice across most disease categories, hits a wall here. Real families almost never agree to go public. Hundreds were approached. Three said yes.

Those three families became the heart of our Co-Creating a Type 1 Diabetes-Friendly Society campaign. Co-produced with China Central Television (CCTV, China’s most authoritative media institution) and endorsed by one of China’s most well-known and trusted news commentators, an 8-minute documentary has reached millions of viewers and trended organically on TikTok within hours of launch. It would be adopted by more T1D COE hospitals for ongoing patient education.

Most powerfully, people and families who had concealed the diagnosis for years began speaking openly. The campaign did not just communicate around a stigma. It broke one.