Prevalence of diagnosed diabetes among African-American and non-Hispanic white youth, 1999

OBJECTIVE: To document diabetes prevalence among African-American and non-Hispanic white youth in a two-county region in South Carolina. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We conducted a population-based surveillance effort to identify case subjects aged 0-18.9 years with a physician diagnosis of diabetes residing in a two-county region in 1999. Case subjects were ascertained from hospitals, the sole office of pediatric endocrinology, and several smaller sources. Case subjects were classified according to the diagnosis made by a pediatric endocrinologist. As a completeness check, eight randomly selected physicians were queried for eligible case subjects. Capture-recapture provided an additional measure of completeness. Prevalence estimates used U.S. 2000 Census data for the two-county denominator. RESULTS: Crude total diabetes prevalence was 1.7 cases per 1000 youth and similar between African-American and non-Hispanic white youth. Among younger youth (0-9.9 years), non-Hispanic white total prevalence was 1.1 per 1000 and African-American prevalence was 0.6 per 1000. Among older youth (10.0-18.9 years), non-Hispanic white total prevalence was 2.5 per 1000 and African-American prevalence was 3.1 per 1000. Type 2 diabetes was only confirmed among older prevalent cases. Ascertainment completeness was estimated to be 98%. CONCLUSIONS: Our estimates suggest that total diabetes prevalence among non-Hispanic white youth is similar to rates observed over 20 years ago. Among African-American youth, the difference in prevalence noted between younger and older age-groups was notably greater than that observed among the non-Hispanic white youth, potentially reflecting a more marked increase in diabetes incidence with age.