Prevalence and Incidence

• In 2003, the number of adults with diagnosed diabetes was 13 million. With the addition of 5.2 million undiagnosed cases, the total prevalence of diabetes was 6.3%.
• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2002 the number of new cases of diabetes in adults was 1.3 million.
• The number of cases of diagnosed diabetes is projected to increase 165% between 2000 and 2050, from 12 million to 39 million².

Morbidity and Mortality

• Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, nontraumatic lower extremity amputation, and end stage renal disease and increases the risk of complications with pregnancy.
• Diabetes was the sixth leading cause of death in the United States in 2001³.
• People with diabetes are generally at twice the risk of death and are two to four times more likely to die from heart disease or stroke than those without diabetes¹.

Cost

• In 2002, costs of diabetes totaled $132 billion, including about $92 billion in direct medical expenditures and about $40 billion in lost productivity and premature death⁴.

Measures

The NHQR diabetes measures include five recommended diabetes interventions and measures of associated outcomes (such as cholesterol and blood pressure levels and diabetes-related complications and hospital admissions). Measures highlighted in this section include:

• Receipt of recommended interventions for diabetes management
• State variation in HbA1c testing
• Hospital admission rates for long-term diabetes complications (renal, eye, neurological, circulatory, or complications not otherwise specified, excluding pregnancy-related diabetes)