- Details
- By Elyse Wild
Native American youth have Type II diabetes at a rate up to 64 times their non-Native peers. That's according to a systematic review published last week in Diabetologia, a peer-reviewed medical journal on diabetes.
The review extracted data from 49 studies conducted between 1978 and 2019 on the prevalence of type II diabetes in the Aboriginal, First Nation and American Indian/Alaska Native populations. It included data from at least 15 distinct Native American studies across multiple regions, including the Great Plains, Navajo Nation, Cherokee Nation, Northern Plains Indians, and various Indian Health Service reservations.
Youth from the Akimel O'odham & Tohono O'odham and Gila River Indian Communities showed the highest prevalence of Type II diabetes at 6.4%
Young Native women bear the highest burden of the disease, with AI/AN female youth having diabetes at rates 77% higher than their male counterparts.
Native youth also experience worse outcomes with diabetes, suffering higher mortality rates compared to non-Indigenous youth, even with similar age at diagnosis and disease duration, pointing to gaps in healthcare accessibility.
Diabetes in AI/AN youth has only worsened in the past four decades. Across Native communities included in the review, the disease has risen 3-8 times since 1980.
The review noted that a handful of the studies included used data from the Indian Health Service records, which may have resulted in the prevalence of the disease being underestimated due to barriers in access to care.
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