Research by Carle Illinois College of Medicine students finds Florida and Texas are two ‘hotspots’ for Americans dealing with short- and long-term complications of diabetes, according to a recent report published in US News & World Report.
According to the ‘US News’ article and a press release from the Endocrine Society, Carle Illinois students Jacques Lowe and Claire Lee analyzed information from Medicare and other public databases on diabetes complications in more than 3,000 U.S. counties. The report says the researchers fed the data into geospatial analysis software to identify areas of high long-term diabetes complication rates. “Our analysis has enabled us to create a map of the United States that showcases hot spots of different diabetes complications and any demographic information associated with these areas,” said Lowe. Counties in Florida and Texas were identified as having higher complication rates, according to the report, while counties in the West and Great Plains had lower long-term complication rates from diabetes.
In terms of demographics, the US News article reports that, compared to cold spots, hot spots had higher percentages of Hispanic diabetes patients and Black patients and tended to be more densely populated areas.
“Our hope is that by using these findings as a guide we can better concentrate our support to mitigate the complications of diabetes in these populations,” Lowe said in the Endocrine Society news release.
The team’s findings were presented at a June meeting of the Endocrine Society, held in Atlanta and made available online.
Editor’s note: The original article published in US News & World Report was written by Robert Preidt of HealthDay Reporter. The full article from US News & World report can be found here.
The original news release from The Endocrine Society can be found here.