Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2020

Abstract

More than 100 million Americans have diabetes or prediabetes (29 and 84 million, respectively). Factors such as overweight, sedentary behavior, and history of diabetes in the family have been commonly associated with the onset of type 2 diabetes. Extant literature now points to the effect of socio-economic factors such as education, income, ethnicity, and physical location on the prevalence of the disease. This research aims to investigate the impact of social determinants on diabetes with a particular emphasis on the digital divide. We used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for diagnosed diabetes prevalence, obesity prevalence, and leisure time physical inactivity data for the year 2013 by county. We contrasted the diabetes prevalence data against social factors such as race, educational attainment, income, poverty, unemployment, and digital divide obtained from the US Census Bureau data. Used bivariate, multivariate and regression analysis reveals a statistically significant relation between the prevalence of diabetes and digital divide, race, education, income and unemployment rate, obesity prevalence, and leisure time physical inactivity (P<0.000). Overall, the results demonstrate the significant role of the digital divide in influencing chronic conditions such as diabetes.

Download

Share

COinS