The rising tide of diabetes mellitus in a Chinese population: a population-based household survey on 121,895 persons.

OBJECTIVES

We studied the prevalence of self-reported diabetes mellitus in selected years from 2001 to 2008, and evaluated the factors associated with diabetes.

METHODS

From territory-wide household interviews in a Chinese population in the years 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2008, we evaluated the trend of self-reported diabetes with respect to age, sex and household income. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to study the independent factors associated with diabetes.

RESULTS

From 121,895 respondents in the household surveys, 103,367 were adults aged 15 years or older. Among male respondents, the age- and sex-adjusted prevalence of diabetes in 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2008 was 2.80, 2.87, 3.32 and 4.66 %, respectively; while among female respondents the respective prevalence was 3.25, 3.37, 3.77 and 4.31 %. In all the years, the prevalence escalated with age and increased sharply among the poor. From binary logistic regression analyses, advanced age and low monthly household income were significantly associated with self-report of diabetes.

CONCLUSIONS

This study showed a rising trend of diabetes mellitus in a large Chinese population and found a strong association between population demography and diabetes.