Skip to main content
PMC home page
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health logoLink to Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
. 2000 Mar;54(3):173–177. doi: 10.1136/jech.54.3.173

Diabetes prevalence and socioeconomic status: a population based study showing increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus in deprived areas

V Connolly 1, N Unwin 1, P Sherriff 1, R Bilous 1, W Kelly 1
PMCID: PMC1731634  PMID: 10746110

Abstract

OBJECTIVE—To establish the relation between socioeconomic status and the age-sex specific prevalence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The hypothesis was that prevalence of type 2 diabetes would be inversely related to socioeconomic status but there would be no association with the prevalence of type 1 diabetes and socioeconomic status.
SETTING—Middlesbrough and East Cleveland, United Kingdom, district population 287 157.
PATIENTS—4313 persons with diabetes identified from primary care and hospital records.
RESULTS—The overall age adjusted prevalence was 15.60 per 1000 population. There was a significant trend between the prevalence of type 2 diabetes and quintile of deprivation score in men and women (χ2 for linear trend, p<0.001). In men the prevalence in the least deprived quintile was 13.4 per 1000 (95% confidence intervals (95% CI) 11.44, 15.36) compared with 17.22 per 1000 (95% CI 15.51, 18.92) in the most deprived. For women the prevalence was 10.84 per 1000 (95% CI 9.00, 12.69) compared with 15.48 per 1000 (95% CI 13.84, 17.11) in the most deprived. The increased prevalence of diabetes in the most deprived areas was accounted for by increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the age band 40-69 years. There was no association between the prevalence of type 1 diabetes and socioeconomic status.
CONCLUSION—These data confirm an inverse association between socioeconomic status and the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the middle years of life. This finding suggests that exposure to factors that are implicated in the causation of diabetes is more common in deprived areas.


Keywords: socioeconomic status; prevalence; type 2 diabetes mellitus; type 1 diabetes mellitus

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (147.1 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Barker D. J., Gardner M. J., Power C. Incidence of diabetes amongst people aged 18-50 years in nine British towns: a collaborative study. Diabetologia. 1982 Jun;22(6):421–425. doi: 10.1007/BF00282583. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Chaturvedi N., Jarrett J., Shipley M. J., Fuller J. H. Socioeconomic gradient in morbidity and mortality in people with diabetes: cohort study findings from the Whitehall Study and the WHO Multinational Study of Vascular Disease in Diabetes. BMJ. 1998 Jan 10;316(7125):100–105. doi: 10.1136/bmj.316.7125.100. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Chaturvedi N., McKeigue P. M. Methods for epidemiological surveys of ethnic minority groups. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1994 Apr;48(2):107–111. doi: 10.1136/jech.48.2.107. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Hales C. N., Barker D. J., Clark P. M., Cox L. J., Fall C., Osmond C., Winter P. D. Fetal and infant growth and impaired glucose tolerance at age 64. BMJ. 1991 Oct 26;303(6809):1019–1022. doi: 10.1136/bmj.303.6809.1019. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Kurtz Z., Peckham C. S., Ades A. E. Changing prevalence of juvenile-onset diabetes mellitus. Lancet. 1988 Jul 9;2(8602):88–90. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(88)90015-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Majeed F. A., Cook D. G., Poloniecki J., Griffiths J., Stones C. Sociodemographic variables for general practices: use of census data. BMJ. 1995 May 27;310(6991):1373–1374. doi: 10.1136/bmj.310.6991.1373. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Marshall J. A., Hoag S., Shetterly S., Hamman R. F. Dietary fat predicts conversion from impaired glucose tolerance to NIDDM. The San Luis Valley Diabetes Study. Diabetes Care. 1994 Jan;17(1):50–56. doi: 10.2337/diacare.17.1.50. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Matthews K. A., Kelsey S. F., Meilahn E. N., Kuller L. H., Wing R. R. Educational attainment and behavioral and biologic risk factors for coronary heart disease in middle-aged women. Am J Epidemiol. 1989 Jun;129(6):1132–1144. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a115235. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Medalie J. H., Papier C., Herman J. B., Goldbourt U., Tamir S., Neufeld H. N., Riss E. Diabetes mellitus among 10,000 adult men. I. Five-year incidence and associated variables. Isr J Med Sci. 1974 Jul;10(7):681–697. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Rimm E. B., Chan J., Stampfer M. J., Colditz G. A., Willett W. C. Prospective study of cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and the risk of diabetes in men. BMJ. 1995 Mar 4;310(6979):555–559. doi: 10.1136/bmj.310.6979.555. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Robinson N., Lloyd C. E., Stevens L. K. Social deprivation and mortality in adults with diabetes mellitus. Diabet Med. 1998 Mar;15(3):205–212. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-9136(199803)15:3<205::AID-DIA519>3.0.CO;2-#. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Rose G., Marmot M. G. Social class and coronary heart disease. Br Heart J. 1981 Jan;45(1):13–19. doi: 10.1136/hrt.45.1.13. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Salonen J. T., Nyyssönen K., Tuomainen T. P., Mäenpä P. H., Korpela H., Kaplan G. A., Lynch J., Helmrich S. P., Salonen R. Increased risk of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus at low plasma vitamin E concentrations: a four year follow up study in men. BMJ. 1995 Oct 28;311(7013):1124–1127. doi: 10.1136/bmj.311.7013.1124. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Waller D., Agass M., Mant D., Coulter A., Fuller A., Jones L. Health checks in general practice: another example of inverse care? BMJ. 1990 Apr 28;300(6732):1115–1118. doi: 10.1136/bmj.300.6732.1115. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Williams D. R. Hospital admissions of diabetic patients: information from hospital activity analysis. Diabet Med. 1985 Jan;2(1):27–32. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-5491.1985.tb00588.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Winkleby M. A., Fortmann S. P., Barrett D. C. Social class disparities in risk factors for disease: eight-year prevalence patterns by level of education. Prev Med. 1990 Jan;19(1):1–12. doi: 10.1016/0091-7435(90)90001-z. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. abu Sayeed M., Ali L., Hussain M. Z., Rumi M. A., Banu A., Azad Khan A. K. Effect of socioeconomic risk factors on the difference in prevalence of diabetes between rural and urban populations in Bangladesh. Diabetes Care. 1997 Apr;20(4):551–555. doi: 10.2337/diacare.20.4.551. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES