RALEIGH – Diabetes rates in North Carolina have nearly doubled in 20 years, reflecting a rapidly growing “epidemic” that costs billions of dollars in medical spending and a less efficient workforce, a new report from Harvard University says.
Diabetes is now the seventh-leading cause of death in the state, where the disease is far more prevalent than in the U.S. overall, the report says. And among African Americans and American Indians in the state, it is the fourth-leading and third-leading cause of death, respectively.
“This growing threat to the health of North Carolinians is also a threat to the state's economy,” the report says.
At its current pace, it says, diabetes is on track to cost the state's public and private sectors over $17 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity by 2025.
“With such high stakes, the state must take significant steps to address the disease from every angle,” the report says, including collaborative, coordinated efforts to attack known risk factors for diabetes for the population overall, and to improve the quality of care and access to it for all individuals living with the disease.
The report calls for “multipronged changes to the state's healthcare, nutrition and physical activity landscapes,” including better access to healthy food and education programs; better access to medical and lifestyle interventions; improvements in the built environment; and new legislation and diabetes-related task forces.
In the U.S., diabetes affects nearly 26 million children and adults, or 1 in 10 Americans, and is the main cause of death for over 71,000 Americans a year, according to the American Diabetes Association. By 2050, if current trends continue, as many as one in three Americans will have diabetes, which now generates $245 billion a year in costs.
Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for nine in 10 diabetes cases, is a disorder of the body's metabolic system that is characterized by high blood sugar, with obesity believed to be the main cause of the disease in people genetically predisposed to it. People who develop type 2 diabetes can lose up to 15 years of life, the report says.
Funded through a grant from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation and released Thursday night in Raleigh, the report from the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School is the result of research and over 90 interviews with policymakers, government agencies and nonprofits involved in North Carolina's response to diabetes.
The report, “2014 New Carolina State Report: Providing Access to Healthy Solutions (PATHS) – The Diabetes Epidemic in North Carolina: Policies for Moving Forward” calls for a broad range of approaches to tackle diabetes.
For information or copies of the Harvard report, contact:
Wayne Hurder
Randolph E Cloud & Associates
919-821-1004
whurder@att.net
