Differences in diabetes mellitus onset for older Black, White, and Mexican Americans.

OBJECTIVES: Our research examines the differences in estimated odds of developing diabetes mellitus for White, Black, and Mexican Americans age 51 and over for a period of 11 years. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Longitudinal data came from 14,783 respondents of the Health and Retirement Study (1995-2006) who reported being diabetes-free at the first time period. Discrete-time survival models were used to analyze ethnic variations in the probability of developing diabetes. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Estimated odds of developing diabetes mellitus.
RESULTS: The odds of newly diagnosed diabetes increased between 1995 and 2006, with 11% cumulative incidence for all study participants. The probability of incident diabetes among Black Americans was .01 during the period of 1995/96-1998, which increased to .03 during 1998-2000 and remained at .03 throughout subsequent periods, with cumulative incidence over the 11 years at 12%. In contrast, for Mexican Americans the probability more than doubled from .02 in 1995/ 96-1998 to .05 in 2004-2006, with cumulative incidence at 19%. White Americans had 11% cumulative incidence during the 11 year period.
CONCLUSIONS: Relative to White Americans, Mexican Americans had significantly elevated odds of developing diabetes throughout the 11-year period of observation even after controlling for differences in demographic, socioeconomic, and time-varying health characteristics.