Prevalence of Older Age Diabetes in Rural Area of North-West Region of Bangladesh

Background: Bangladesh's north-west region consistently has worse health results than the rest of the nation. Many chronic illnesses, including diabetes, which is the seventh biggest cause of mortality in Bangladesh, fall under this category. This research compared the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes among older persons living in rural Bangladesh's north-west region.

Methods: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Public Use Files for Medicare Beneficiaries (September 2020), which offer county level prevalence for diabetes as well as a number of other diseases among beneficiaries of Medicare fee-for-service, were used to extract data for the year 2018. Using a binomial regression, differences in the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes were evaluated.

Results: When compared to the Urban reference group in the final model, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes was marginally lower in the rural group (PR: 0.98 [95% CI: 0.97-1.00]).

Conclusion: It is possible that the diagnostic prevalence of diabetes in an older adult population starts to level off due to diabetes' earlier onset. Lack of access to care in rural areas is another reason why there was no statistically significant difference in prevalence between these groups.