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Socio-economic inequalities in diabetes and prediabetes among Bangladeshi adults

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Abstract

Diabetes and prediabetes are overwhelming public health concerns in Bangladesh. However, there is a paucity of the literature examining and measuring socioeconomic inequalities in the prevalence of diabetes in Bangladesh. To provide reliable data and contribute to a nationwide scenario analysis, this study aims to estimate the inequality in prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes and to identify factors potentially contributing to socioeconomic inequalities in Bangladesh. This study used data from the latest Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2017–18, a nationally representative survey. A regression-based decomposition method was applied to assess the socioeconomic contributors to inequality. The prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes were about 10 and 15% among Bangladeshi adults, respectively. Both diabetes and prediabetes were significantly associated with age, wealth status, suffering from overweight or obesity and administrative divisions of the respondents (p < 0.001). Respondents’ household wealth status accounted for about 74 and 81% of the total inequality in diabetes and prediabetes in Bangladesh, respectively. Administrative region contributed 24.85% of the inequality in prediabetes and 12.26% of the inequality in diabetes. In addition, overweight or obesity status contributed 11.37% and exposure to television contributed 5.17% of the inequality in diabetes. Diabetes and prediabetes affect a substantial proportion of the Bangladeshi adult population. Therefore, these findings should be considered in the context of current and proposed policy decision making and for tracking its progression with economic development in Bangladesh.

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Data availability

The electronic datasets can be freely downloaded from the DHS’s website through the following link: https://dhsprogram.com/data.

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This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Population Studies Division, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Dhaka, 1207, Bangladesh

    Abdur Razzaque Sarker

  2. Institute of Health Economics, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Moriam Khanam

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  1. Abdur Razzaque Sarker
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  2. Moriam Khanam
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Contributions

ARS conducted the design of the study, interpretation of data, and writing of the initial manuscript. ARS and MK contributed to the statistical analysis plan and wrote the statistical methods section. ARS and MK reviewed the manuscript. ARS is the guarantor of this paper. All authors reviewed, contributed to, and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Abdur Razzaque Sarker.

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Authors have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

This study did not require ethical approval as it used unidentifiable secondary DHS dataset. According to the DHS, written informed consent was obtained from mothers/caretakers on behalf of the children enrolled in the survey. The DHS data are publicly accessible and were made available to us upon request by Measure DHS. No identifiable information was included in the dataset and no attempt was made to identify any individual interviewed in the survey.

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Sarker, A.R., Khanam, M. Socio-economic inequalities in diabetes and prediabetes among Bangladeshi adults. Diabetol Int 13, 421–435 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13340-021-00556-9

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