It's difficult to be financially hard-up and sick at the same time but the situation could be worse for poor people with diabetes. A new study conducted by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that diabetics who reside in low income neighborhood could be up to 10 times more likely to lose a limb compared with their affluent counterparts.
For the new study "Geographic Clustering Of Diabetic Lower-Extremity Amputations In Low-Income Regions Of California," which was published in the August issue of Health Affairs, Carl Stevens from UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, and colleagues used census numbers as well as data from the UCLA's California Health Interview Survey and patient discharge records from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development to create a map that showed the rate of diabetes-related amputations by neighborhood in California among diabetic patients who are at least 45 years old.
The map revealed that in California, the amputation rate among diabetics was 10 times higher in the poorest neighborhood such as Compton and East Los Angeles compared with the most affluent neighborhoods like Beverly Hills and Malibu.
"Comparisons of the maps show amputation 'hot spots' in lower-income urban and rural regions of California," the researchers wrote. "Prevalence-adjusted amputation rates varied tenfold between high-income and low-income regions."
The study also suggests that race matters when it comes to likelihood of getting amputated due to diabetes. The researchers observed that while only 6 percent of diabetics are black, black people make up almost 13 percent of the individuals who had at least one amputation in 2009. Asians, on the other hand, who made up 12 percent of patients with diabetes, only made up 5 percent of those who had diabetes-related amputations in the same year. The researchers also observed that diabetics who needed to have their limb amputated were most likely non-English speaking men, black and over 65 years old.
"When you have diabetes, where you live directly relates to whether you'll lose a limb to the disease," Stevens said. "Millions of Californians have undergone preventable amputations due to poorly managed diabetes. We hope our findings spur policymakers nationwide to improve access to treatment by expanding Medicaid and other programs targeting low-income residents, as we did in California in 2014."
Figures from the National Diabetes Statistics Report show that 29.1 million people or over 9 percent of the population in the U.S. have diabetes, a metabolic disease marked by the body's inability to produce enough insulin leading to elevated blood sugar levels.
