High Prevalence of Diabetes Among Indo-Guyanese Adults, Schenectady, New York

INTRODUCTION: The Indo-Guyanese population is the largest immigrant minority population in Schenectady, New York. A clinic-based study in Schenectady and surveillance reports from Guyana found high diabetes prevalence and mortality among Guyanese of Indian descent. No community-based study has focused on diabetes among Indo-Guyanese immigrants in the United States. We sought information on the prevalence of diabetes and its complications in Indo-Guyanese adults in Schenectady and compared it with the prevalence among non-Hispanic white adults in Schenectady. METHODS: We administered a cross-sectional health survey at community venues in Schenectady in 2011. We identified diagnosed diabetes and its complications through self-reports by using a reliability-tested questionnaire. The final data set included 313 Indo-Guyanese and 327 non-Hispanic white adults aged 18 years or older. We compared the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes and diabetes complications between Indo-Guyanese and non-Hispanic whites. RESULTS: Most Indo-Guyanese participants were born in Guyana, whereas most non-Hispanic whites were born in the United States. The crude prevalence of diagnosed diabetes among Indo-Guyanese participants and non-Hispanic whites was 30.3% and 16.1%, respectively. The age-standardized prevalence was 28.7% among Indo-Guyanese participants, significantly higher than that among non-Hispanic whites (14.5%, P < .001). Indo-Guyanese participants who had diabetes had a lower body mass index and were more likely to report poor or fair general health and eye or vision complications than non-Hispanic whites who had diabetes. CONCLUSION: Our study confirms the higher prevalence of diabetes in Indo-Guyanese adults in Schenectady. The higher prevalence of complications suggests poor control of diabetes. Excess burden of diabetes in this population calls for further research and public health action.