Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2010

Abstract

Introduction

We compared the risk of diabetes for residents of Appalachian counties to that of residents of non-Appalachian counties after controlling for selected risk factors in states containing at least 1 Appalachian county.

Methods

We combined Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data from 2006 and 2007 and conducted a logistic regression analysis, with self-reported diabetes as the dependent variable. We considered county of residence (5 classifications for Appalachian counties, based on economic development, and 1 for non-Appalachian counties), age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, household income, smoking status, physical activity level, and obesity to be independent variables. The classification “distressed” refers to counties in the worst 10%, compared with the nation as a whole, in terms of 3-year unemployment rate, per capita income, and poverty.

Results

Controlling for covariates, residents in distressed Appalachian counties had 33% higher odds (95% confidence interval, 1.10-1.60) of reporting diabetes than residents of non-Appalachian counties. We found no significant differences between other classifications of Appalachian counties and non-Appalachian counties.

Conclusions

Residents of distressed Appalachian counties are at higher risk of diabetes than are residents of other counties. States with distressed Appalachian counties should implement culturally sensitive programs to prevent diabetes.

Comments

This article is available as an open access article from Preventing Chronic Disease. The Budapest Open Access Initiative defines open access as free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. Final version may be found at http://www.cdc.gov/PCD/issues/2010/sep/pdf/09_0203.pdf

Copyright © 2010 Preventing Chronic Disease.

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