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"Racial Disparities in Diabetes Care" Marks First Public Health Grand Rounds

YSPH students and faculty gathered with members of the New Haven community on February 20 in Winslow Auditorium as Ronny A. Bell, Ph.D., M.S., reported the staggering numbers of racial disparities in diabetes care in America.

The presentation, “Racial Disparities in Diabetes Care,” was the first in a series of six lectures inaugurating the first ever public health grand rounds at YSPH.

Bell, the Director of the Maya Angelou Research Center on Minority Health at Wake Forest University Health Sciences, stated that diabetes accounts for 19% of health care expenditures in the United States.  It is the 6th leading cause of death, claiming 225,000 annually, and approximately 21 million Americans are battling the disease.  However, about 1/3 of people with diabetes go undiagnosed.

With his colleagues, Bell found “major racial disparities in eye examination, influenza vaccination and lipid profile testing among African Americans and Hispanics compared to non-Hispanic whites.”  In 1999, 64% of non-Hispanic whites with diabetes received the proper eye examinations compared with 55% of African Americans with diabetes.

"Racial and ethnic disparities exist in process and outcome indicators necessary for optimal diabetes management," said Bell. "These disparities may explain to some extent the excess in diabetes morbidity and mortality in these populations."

Bell explained current efforts that are needed in order to narrow the racial disparities gap in diabetes care:

  • Need to further elucidate the cause of ethnic disparities in diabetes process and outcome measures;
  • Need to include more data on other racial and ethnic minority groups; and
  • What types of interventions will best address these complex issues?

Please view Dr. Bell’s presentation.

The next Public Health Grand Rounds entitled, “Health Disparities in Asthma: Environemental and Social Contributions,” will be held on Wednesday, March 26 at noon in Winslow Auditorium.  The lecture will be given by Rosalind Wright M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

The Public Health Grand Rounds series is hosted by YSPH faculty, Tené Lewis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in SBS and the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology (CDE) and Robert Dubrow, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor in CDE. It is sponsored by Pfizer, CARE (a program of the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation), YSPH, Yale School of Nursing, Yale Office of Multicultural Affairs, and the Association of Schools of Public Health.

-Story by Marcie Addy