The higher incidence of diabetes among African Americans when compared to whites may have more to do with living conditions than genetics, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study, available online in advance of publication in the October 2009 edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that when African Americans and whites live in similar environments and have similar incomes, their diabetes rates are similar, which contrasts with the fact that nationally diabetes is more prevalent among African Americans than whites.
Researchers from the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine compared data from the 2003 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) with the Exploring Health Disparities in Integrated Communities Southwest Baltimore (EHDIC-SWB) Study. The Baltimore study was conducted in a racially integrated urban community without race differences in socioeconomic status.
In recent decades the United States has seen a sharp increase in diabetes prevalence, with African Americans having a considerably higher occurrence of type 2 diabetes and other related complications compared to whites.
"While we often hear media reports of genes that account for race differences in health outcomes, genes are but one of many factors that lead to the major health conditions that account for most deaths in the United States," said Thomas LaVeist, PhD, director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions and lead author of the study.
Some researchers have speculated that disparities in diabetes prevalence are the result of genetic differences between race groups. However, LaVeist noted that those previous studies were based on national data where African Americans and whites tend to live in separate communities with different levels of exposure to health risks. The EHDIC-SWB study accounts for racial differences in socioeconomic and environmental risk exposures to determine if the diabetes race disparity reported in national data is similar when black and white Americans live under comparable conditions.