Diabetes is a serious and growing public health problem in Canada, particularly in Aboriginal populations. The morbidity and mortality associated with diabetes are increased considerably by complications such as heart disease and stroke, blindness, kidney disease, nerve disease and amputations.

To date, there has been a lack of ongoing, systematic, validated Canadian analysis for basic prevalence and other diabetes information. The National Diabetes Surveillance System (NDSS) is the mechanism developed to provide improved data about diabetes. It is a network of regionally distributed diabetes surveillance systems that compile administrative health care data relating to diabetes and send aggregate anonymous data to Health Canada for national analyses.