Presentations

Abstract

Introduction:

The Western Tidewater (WT) region consists of Franklin, Suffolk, Isle of Wight, Southampton, Surry, and Sussex, Virginia, as well as Gates County, North Carolina. In each locality, the prevalence of Diabetes is higher than the state average.[1] This study aims to gain a better understanding of the demographics and social determinants of health (SDoH) in WT to develop interventions to bridge this gap.

Methods:

Demographics, SDoH, blood pressure, weight, BMI and point-of-care HbA1c were collected through widespread community-based events in WT from April 2022 to June 2023. Data was entered into REDCap and analyzed using JMP Pro10. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for continuous variables to compare mean differences between groups, with post hoc analysis (Tukey-Kramer). ChiSquare was used for categorical variables.

Results:

192 patients were screened. 28.64% had diabetes and 18.23% had pre-diabetes. Black participants were more than twice as likely to have diabetes than white respondents. (33.57% vs 15.22%; p = 0.0484). Diabetic and pre-diabetic participants were older, (mean age: diabetes: 63.36, pre- diabetes: 63.74 vs non-diabetes 52.64; p < 0.0001), had a higher BMI (mean BMI: 34.84, 35.38 vs. 30.91 kg/m2, p=0.0066,) and had higher rates of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and heart disease. Higher rates of diabetes also existed among lower income and less educated groups. No significant differences existed among the groups in other SDoH measures.

Conclusion:

This study shows that income, education, age, BMI, and race are all risk factors for diabetes. Therefore, future interventions should focus on these more vulnerable groups. With WT being an underserved area, we expected there would be more respondents with barriers to care, such as difficulty finding a PCP and getting to appointments, but this was not observed. This could be explained by sampling bias, as people that experience these barriers likely have difficulty attending screenings. It is also important to note there was a disproportionate number of women and black participants (~75%, each group). A future goal is to seek a more representative sample, with efforts to target more underserved areas of WT and male participants.

[1] Sentara Healthcare. Sentara Obici Hospital Community Needs Assessment. Published online 2019.