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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2026 Mar 7.
Published in final edited form as: Prev Med. 2025 Mar 29;194:108274. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2025.108274

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of baseline individual- and neighborhood-level characteristics among United States veterans with a new type-2 diabetes diagnoses in 2008–2018.

 
 All community types (N = 274,463)
 High-density urban (N = 32,649)
 Low-density urban (N = 98,087)
 Suburban/small town (N = 59,727)
 Rural (N = 84,000)
n/mean %/SD n/mean %/SD n/mean %/SD n/mean %/SD n/mean %/SD
Individual-level variables
Age at cohort entry 60.5 11.8 58.9 11.8 60.1 12.1 60.7 12.0 61.5 11.3
Age at new diabetes diagnosis 64.1 11.7 62.5 11.7 63.6 12.0 64.2 11.9 65.1 11.2
Age categories
 18–39 13,192 4.8 18,08 5.5 5195 5.3 2914 4.9 3275 3.9
 40–59 102,669 37.4 14,498 44.4 38,506 39.3 21,681 36.3 27,984 33.3
 60–79 143,020 52.1 14,719 45.1 48,488 49.4 31,602 52.9 48,211 57.4
 80+ 15,582 5.7 1624 5.0 5898 6.0 3530 5.9 4530 5.4
Sex
 Male 260,793 95.0 30,777 94.3 92,535 94.3 56,704 94.9 80,777 96.2
 Female 13,670 5.0 1872 5.7 5552 5.7 3023 5.1 3223 3.8
Race/ethnicity1,2
 White 183,698 66.9 14,001 42.9 59,315 60.5 42,832 71.7 67,550 80.4
 Black 53,758 19.6 12,322 37.7 24,107 24.6 9514 15.9 7815 9.3
 Hispanic 12,852 4.7 3007 9.2 5813 5.9 2385 4.0 1647 2.0
 Asian 2337 0.9 745 2.3 1040 1.1 392 0.7 160 0.2
 Native Hawaiian/Pacific islander 1728 0.6 269 0.8 726 0.7 367 0.6 366 0.4
 American Indian/Alaska native 1599 0.6 158 0.5 454 0.5 332 0.6 655 0.8
Income/disability1
 Disabled 98,945 36.1 10,532 32.3 36,589 37.3 22,785 38.2 29,039 34.6
 Low income 104,553 38.1 15,849 48.5 37,687 38.4 20,569 34.4 30,448 36.3
 None of the above 68,681 25.0 5949 18.2 22,995 23.4 15,892 26.6 23,845 28.4
Marital status1
 Married or living with a partner 154,187 56.2 12,873 39.4 52,069 53.1 36,379 60.9 52,866 62.9
 Single 102,615 37.4 15,793 48.4 38,891 39.7 20,182 33.8 26,686 31.8
Elixhauser comorbidities index −0.4 10.6 −0.3 11.5 −0.5 10.8 −0.6 10.3 −0.3 10.3
Baseline A1C3 (± 30 days of diagnosis) 7.2 1.8 7.4 2.0 7.2 1.8 7.1 1.7 7.1 1.6
Baseline A1C3 severity
 < 7.0 % 173,367 63.2 19,761 60.5 61,757 63.0 38,051 63.7 53,798 64.1
 7.0–8.9 % 69,544 25.3 8098 24.8 24,336 24.8 15,232 25.5 21,878 26.1
 ≥ 9.0 % 31,552 11.5 4790 14.7 11,994 12.2 6444 10.8 8324 9.9
Number of A1C3 follow-up tests per patient 11.7 7.7 12.0 7.9 11.6 7.7 11.6 7.6 11.8 7.6
Proportion of patient’s A1C3 follow-up tests in-range 0.7 0.3 0.7 0.4 0.7 0.3 0.7 0.3 0.7 0.3
Neighborhood-level variables
Physical activity facility density in street network buffer4 0.7 1.3 2.1 3.1 0.9 0.7 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.1
Population-weighted distance to the closest seven parks4 3.4 4.3 0.6 0.6 1.3 1.4 2.9 2.9 7.3 5.3
Neighborhood socioeconomic environment5 17.5 10.2 26.2 13.7 13.1 8.1 16.1 9.3 20.3 8.0
Land use environment4 0.0 0.9 0.0 0.8 0.0 0.9 −0.1 0.9 0.1 0.9
Percent Hispanic5 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Percent non-Hispanic Black5 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.2
1

Does not list 6.74 % missing for race/ethnicity, 0.83 % missing for income/disability, and 6.43 % missing for marital status.

2

All race/ethnicity categories except Hispanic are non-Hispanic.

3

A1C = glycated hemoglobin, an indicator of glycemic control.

4

Geographic information systems-based measure.

5

United States census-derived measure aggregated within census tract.