BMC Public Health
BMC Public Health
3 years ago

Social disparities in the prevalence of diabetes in Australia and in the development of end stage renal disease due to diabetes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia and Maori and Pacific Islanders in New Zealand

Social disparities in the prevalence of diabetes in Australia and in the development of end stage renal disease due to diabetes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia and Maori and Pacific Islanders in New Zealand
Kathleen Hill, Jonathan Gleadle, Paul Ward, Blair S. Grace
Disparities in health status occur between people with differing socioeconomic status and disadvantaged groups usually have the highest risk exposure and the worst health outcome. We sought to examine the social disparities in the population prevalence of diabetes and in the development of treated end stage renal disease due to type 1 diabetes which has not previously been studied in Australia and New Zealand in isolation from type 2 diabetes. This observational study examined the population prevalence of diabetes in a sample of the Australian population (7,434,492) using data from the National Diabetes Services Scheme and of treated end stage renal disease due to diabetes using data from the Australian and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry. The data were then correlated with the Australian Bureau of Statistics Socioeconomic Indexes for Areas for an examination of socioeconomic disparities. There is a social gradient in the prevalence of diabetes in Australia with disease incidence decreasing incrementally with increasing affluence (Spearman’s rho = .765 p < 0.001). There is a higher risk of developing end stage renal disease due to type 1 diabetes for males with low socioeconomic status (RR 1.20; CI 1.002–1.459) in comparison to females with low socioeconomic status. In Australia and New Zealand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Maori and Pacific Islanders appear to have a low risk of end stage renal disease due to type 1 diabetes but continue to carry a vastly disproportionate burden of end stage renal disease due to type 2 diabetes (RR 6.57 CI 6.04–7.14 & 6.48 CI 6.02–6.97 respectively p < 0.001) in comparison to other Australian and New Zealanders. Whilst low socioeconomic status is associated with a higher prevalence of diabetes the inverse social gradient seen in this study has not previously been reported. The social disparity seen in relation to treated end stage renal disease due to type 2 diabetes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Maori and Pacific Islanders has changed very little in the past 20 years. Addressing the increasing incidence of diabetes in Australia requires consideration of the underlying social determinants of health.

Publisher URL: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-017-4807-5

DOI: 10.1186/s12889-017-4807-5

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.