DIABETES PREVALENCE

Diabetes prevalence was derived using a combination of blood test results and self-reported information on diabetes diagnosis and medication use. See the Measuring diabetes - definitions section for a detailed description.

Data source and definitions Fasting plasma glucose is the current standard test for diabetes diagnosis in Australia. The information on diabetes in the following sections is based on fasting plasma glucose results only. Information on diabetes prevalence using glycated haemoglobin (commonly referred to as HbA1c) test results, which is a non-fasting test, is shown in Tables 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 17 on the Downloads page of this publication. In order to get an accurate reading for the fasting plasma glucose test, participants were required to fast for 8 hours or more beforehand. The results presented here refer only to those who did fast (approximately 78% of adults who participated in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Measures Survey (NATSIHMS)).

In 2012–13, just over one in ten (11.1%) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults had diabetes. This comprised 9.6% with known diabetes and 1.5% with diabetes newly diagnosed from their test results. This indicates that there was approximately one newly diagnosed case for every six diagnosed cases. A further one in twenty (4.7%) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had an impaired fasting plasma glucose result, which indicates that they were at high risk of diabetes. This means that there was an extra two people at high risk of diabetes for every six people who had been diagnosed.

Diabetes was twice as common among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote areas in 2012–13. Around one in five (20.8%) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote areas had diabetes compared with around one in ten people in non-remote areas (9.4%). This difference was particularly pronounced for newly diagnosed diabetes, which was five times as high in remote areas than in non-remote areas (4.8% compared with 0.9%).

After taking age differences into account, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were more than three times as likely as non-Indigenous people to have diabetes. They were 3.6 times as likely to have known diabetes and twice as likely to have newly diagnosed diabetes. They were also nearly twice as likely to be at high risk of diabetes.

Diabetes prevalence among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people steadily increased with age. Rates were especially high among those aged 55 years and over, with around one in every three people in this age group having diabetes (34.5%). A further 7.5% of those aged 55 and over were at high risk of diabetes.




Although this overall age pattern was similar to non-Indigenous Australians, diabetes tended to occur at earlier ages for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. For example, the rate of diabetes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 35–44 years (9.0%) was on par with that for non-Indigenous people aged 55–64 years (8.2%). Likewise, the rate for those aged 45–54 years (17.8%) was similar to that for those aged 65–74 in the non-Indigenous population (15.0%). This pattern was apparent for both known diabetes and newly diagnosed diabetes.



One of the major risk factors for developing diabetes is obesity, as excess body weight can interfere with the body's production of, and resistance to, insulin.¹ The Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey showed that four in every ten (39.8%) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were obese. In 2012–13, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were obese were around seven times as likely as those of normal weight or underweight to have diabetes (17.2% compared with 2.4%).

Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with diabetes also had signs of other chronic conditions. For example, diabetes had very high co-morbidity with kidney disease, of which diabetes is the major cause.² Around half (53.1%) of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with diabetes had signs of chronic kidney disease in 2012–13. This was significantly higher than the corresponding rate in the non-Indigenous population (32.5%).

Diabetes was also associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease. Six in ten (60.5%) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with diabetes had lower than normal levels of HDL (good) cholesterol compared with 32.9% of those without diabetes. They were also around twice as likely to have high triglycerides (45.1% compared with 20.7%). Rates of liver disease as measured by GGT were also much higher among those with diabetes (42.0% compared with 20.0%), as were rates of anaemia (19.3% compared with 5.9%).



For more information on diabetes prevalence, see Tables 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 17 on the Downloads page of this publication. ENDNOTES

1 Kahn, B.B & Flier, J.S., 2000, 'Obesity and insulin resistance'. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, <http://www.jci.org/articles/view/10842>,
2 Kidney Health Australia, July 2014, Diabetes and Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), <http://www.kidney.org.au/ForPatients/Management/DiabetesandCKD/tabid/704/Default.aspx>, Back to top