1 in 2 Hispanic Children May Develop Diabetes

I recently read a sobering article on Poder360.com about how our Hispanic community is alarmingly underrepresented by our government’s decision makers.  At a time when health care is up for debate, those who need it most need the strongest voice and many of those suffering from a lack of health care are people with diabetes. World Diabetes Day is great day to shine a spotlight on populations whose needs have been ignored.

According to the United States Health & Human Services Department:

“Mexican Americans are twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be diagnosed with diabetes by a physician.  They have higher rates of end-stage renal disease, caused by diabetes, and they are 50% more likely to die from diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.

• Mexican American adults were 2 times more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to have been diagnosed with diabetes by a physician.
• In 2002, Hispanics were 1.5 times as likely to start treatment for end-stage renal disease related to diabetes, compared to non-Hispanic white men.
• In 2005, Hispanics were 1.6 times as likely as non-Hispanic Whites to die from diabetes.”

I found those statistics staggering and so began looking for some answers.  People who are ignorant of how diabetes happens may blame genes or lifestyle for the high rate of type 2 diabetes among Hispanics.  I have too often heard patients being blamed for their type 2 diabetes even when they had no doctor to educate, screen, or treat them for diabetes. So I will place blame in a different place:  the lack of diabetes information, medical and nutritional  services, and health insurance for Hispanic and Latino people in the United States. Statistics show that people with better access to information, support, and health care have lower rates of diabetes regardless of their race or ethnicity.  It is a lack of information and intervention that is fueling the rate at which diabetes is spreading.

Hispanics make up 15 percent of the United States population and are the least likely any ethnic or racial group to have health insurance despite showing a higher than average presence in the workforce.  In fact, 34 percent of all Hispanics do not have any health insurance.

In 2006, Hispanic news reported that, “One in three children born in the United States five years ago are expected to become diabetic in their lifetimes, according to a projection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The forecast is even bleaker for Latinos: one in every two.”

Please, mothers, fathers, read this again because it is your children, our children that are so at risk:  One in every two Hispanic children born is expected to develop diabetes.

I urge every blog visitor to stand up for those children now.  It is not too late to change their future. And the key to change is through better awareness and diabetes initiatives using our collective voices to make sure the non-diabetic world is listening to us.  If we don’t make a loud noise now, someday the world will have to listen because at the current epidemic rate diabetes is threatening our children, someday, people with diabetes will become the majority population.

Sources: 

• Mary Sanchez.  Poder360.com.  Hispanics and the Health Care Debate.  October 2009.
• States Health & Human Services Department. Office of Minority Health. Diabetes and Hispanic Americans.  Accessed October 10, 2009
• Jon Garrido. Hispanic News. Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans Incur Diabetes Twice the Rate of Anglos. January 9, 2006.