Profile of Diabetes Mellitus among Immigrants from Guyana: Epidemiology and Implications for Community Action

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Ethn Dis
• Personal Author:
  Back, Ephraim E. ; Bachwani, Avinash S. ; Strogatz, David S. ; Sherman, Zachary
• Description:
  Objective
  
  Prompted by anecdotal evidence of a higher rate of Type 2 diabetes, we set out to investigate the prevalence of diabetes, its risk factors, and co-morbidities among immigrant Guyanese patients being treated in a family medicine health center.
  
  Methods
  
  Patients were ascertained from a registration database of all patients ≥ 30 years old who were treated from 2004 to 2006. We then conducted a detailed retrospective chart review of all Guyanese, Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic patients with diabetes and randomly selected non-diabetic controls.
  
  Results
  
  Of 222 Guyanese patients, 67 (30.2%) had a diagnosis of diabetes, compared with 47/219 (21.5%) of Hispanics, 132/777 (17.0%) of African-Americans, and 442/2834 (15.6%) of Caucasians (p <0.0001). Compared with the other racial and ethnic groups, the Guyanese diabetic patients were significantly leaner and more likely to be male.
  
  Conclusion
  
  In the population studied, there is a very high prevalence of Type 2 diabetes among Guyanese patients, with unique characteristics when compared with other ethnic and racial groups. These findings have alerted local clinicians to intensify diabetes screening among Guyanese patients. Furthermore, in response to these findings, a broad coalition including public health, clinical, and community groups has been established with the goal of developing culturally appropriate strategies to prevent and control diabetes among Guyanese residents.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adult Aged Body Mass Index Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 Emigrants And Immigrants Female Humans Male Middle Aged Prevalence Urban Population

  More +
• Source:
  Ethn Dis. 22(4):473-478.
• Pubmed ID:
  23140079
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC3501736
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  1 P20 MD003373/MD/NIMHD NIH HHS/United States ; 5 U48 DP000028/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHS/United States ; P20 MD003373/MD/NIMHD NIH HHS/United States
• Place as Subject:
  Guyana ; New York
• Volume:
  22
• Issue:
  4
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:18080a461f120a54bf09ed36ff208dd97eec1fb5bad8439865cc8b5e51ba45b3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/33476/cdc_33476_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 514.27 KB ]