Exploring the Spatial Variation in Diabetes Burden among Women in India: Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Survey

Shri Kant Singh , International Institue for Population Science (IIPS)
Parul Puri, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai

This paper analyses the spatial variation in the prevalence of diabetes among women in India using data from the recent round of the National Family Health Survey, 2015-16. To draw inferences from the data age-adjusted prevalence rates were calculated followed by an examination of economic inequality using Wagstaff's concentration index. To examine the spatial variation in the prevalence of diabetes, a series of quantile maps, univariate and bivariate LISA cluster maps were generated. Further to explore the district-level diabetes prevalence among women in the country OLS and Spatial Autoregressive (SAR) models were used. The findings suggest that the age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes was higher among women with obesity. The prevalence of obesity among women aged 35-49 years has made a significant contribution (13%) in enhancing the risk of diabetes. There is relatively larger concentration of diabetes among women in the Southern and Eastern parts of the country. The spatial clustering of diabetes prevalence is affirmed with significantly high values of the univariate Moran's-I (I=0.42***) and auto-regressive coefficient (0.51, p<0.01) accounting for the geographical pattern of measured and unmeasured independent variables. These findings portray that the prevalence of diabetes among women in India is significantly affected by geographic variations. Therefore, programmes and interventions to lower the intensity of community-based prevalence of diabetes, especially among women in their late reproductive ages, should adopt differential approach across different states/districts in the context of their lifestyle, dietary pattern, working pattern and other socio-cultural practices keeping levels of obesity in the central place.

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 Presented in Session P2. Poster Session Ageing, Health and Mortality