Association between socioeconomic status and diabetes in rural settings of India

Abstract

Background: The pattern of diabetes incidence is related to the geographical distribution of diabetes, rough estimates show that the prevalence of diabetes in rural population is one-quarter that of urban population for India and Indian subcontinent countries. Socioeconomic status (SES) determinants of health status refer to an individual’s position within a hierarchical social structure. Objective: The 6 months prospective observational cross-sectional study in a sample of 100 diabetic’s performed in a secondary referral health-care setting of India aimed at assessing the association of SES of an individual based on three variables of Kuppuswamy scale. Materials and Methods: Study included participants diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (DM) of age above 18 years who showed willingness to participate in the study, whereas pregnant women, children below 18 years of age and participants diagnosed with diabetes but showed no willingness was excluded from the study. Results: The prevalence of DM was found to be 0.0713 with period prevalence of 0.0571. In our study, 29% of the study population was under age group of 51-60 years, illiteracy was 71%, and marital status was 92%. Based on Kuppuswamy scale the score of SES in our study, 42% of individuals were documented under Class IV, which shows a study relationship of household income, occupation, and education with diabetes between age group of 30 and 70 years. Conclusion: These findings concluded an inequality of health according to SES in the younger population.