New Report Focuses on Women and Diabetes

A new report Women at High Risk for Diabetes: Access and Quality of Health Care, 2003–2006 was released on February 14, 2011 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) . The full report can be downloaded or free print copies ordered HERE .

Using the most scientifically based measures and national data sources available, this collaborative effort compared the quality of preventive health care received by U.S. women at high risk for diabetes with that for U.S. women not at high risk for diabetes. The report presents quality measures across several crucial elements of health care: access to care, general health and wellbeing, and use of preventive care and behaviors.
Among the report’s major findings:
·         Regardless of diabetes risk status, minority women, women with low levels of education, or women who lived in low income families more often reported having fair-to-poor health.
·         Regardless of diabetes risk status, women with a high school education or less were significantly more likely than women with more than a high school education to have been uninsured all year.
·         Women at high risk for diabetes who had a high school education or less were significantly less likely than women at high risk for diabetes who had more than a high school education to have tried to lose weight in the past year.
·         Women at high risk for diabetes were significantly less likely than women not at high risk for diabetes to report that they were physically active 150 minutes per week, the level of moderate physical activity per week recommended as part of a strategy to prevent or delay onset of type 2 diabetes.

Additional resources on diabetes and women can be found HERE.