Description
According to the Department of Health & Human Services, every day in the United States approximately 2,200 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed. The incidence continues to rise as the population ages and the minority population increases. In 2005 alone, the County of San Diego's age-adjusted rate of diabetes hospitalizations for Hispanics was 236.0 per 100,000, compared to just 87.1 per 100,000 for Whites. This study will investigate socio-ecological characteristics associated with Type 2 diabetes in the California population by race/ethnicity. Furthermore, this study will explore the relationships between Type 2 diabetes prevalence and: race/ethnicity, SES as constructed by percent of federal poverty level, educational attainment, language proficiency, and several socio-environmental variables. Specifically, this study expects to find disproportionate numbers of racial/ethnic minorities affected by Type 2 diabetes and deficient community characteristics. The data comes from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), a biannual questionnaire facilitated by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research in collaboration with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), Department of Health Care Services and the Public Health Institute. This study will analyze the CHIS 2007 Adult survey information which is available to the public and contains no individual identifiers. The CHIS 2007 Adult survey captured 51, 048 individuals from the state of California between the ages of 18 and 85 years old. This study confirmed that disparities exist among those with Type 2 diabetes by race/ethnicity; both Hispanic and African American racial/ethnic groups had statistically significant higher odds of having Type 2 diabetes in comparison with Whites (OR=1.28, 95% CI (1.125, 1.445) and OR=1.73, 95% CI (1.367, 2.187) respectively) which is consistent with previous studies. After controlling for other variables in the model, an inverse relationship between education and Type 2 diabetes was found, and a significant interaction between race/ethnicity and gender was demonstrated (p =0.0002). Contrary to the hypothesis of this study, the final weighted model did not show significant differences in those with Type 2 diabetes living in deficient communities by race/ethnicity. This study aims to accurately identify populations in CA that are at high risk for type 2 diabetes. In addition to supporting a top priority of Healthy People 2010, eliminating health disparities, this study will provide important research for future directions in the development and implementation of intervention and prevention programs for racial/ethnic groups in CA.
