Lifetime risk of diabetes among First Nations and non-First Nations people

Lifetime risk is a relatively straightforward measure used to communicate disease burden, representing the cumulative risk of an outcome during the remainder of an individual's life starting from a disease-free index age. We estimated the lifetime risk of diabetes among men and women in both First Nations and non-First Nations populations using a cohort of adults in a single Canadian province.

We used a population-based cohort consisting of Alberta residents from 1997 to 2008 who were free of diabetes at cohort entry to estimate the lifetime risk of diabetes among First Nations and non-First Nations people. We calculated age-specific incidence rates with the person-year method in 5-year bands. We estimated the sex- and index-age-specific lifetime risk of incident diabetes, after adjusting for the competing risk of death.

The cohort included 70 631 First Nations and 2 732 214 non-First Nations people aged 18 years or older. The lifetime risk of diabetes at 20 years of age was 75.6% among men and 87.3% among women in the First Nations group, as compared with 55.6% among men and 46.5% among women in the non-First Nations group. The risk was higher among First Nations people than among non-First Nations people for all index ages and for both sexes. Among non-First Nations people, men had a higher lifetime risk of diabetes than women across all index ages. In contrast, among First Nations people, women had a higher lifetime risk than men across all index ages.

About 8 in 10 First Nations people and about 5 in 10 non-First Nations people of young age will develop diabetes in their remaining lifetime. These population-based estimates may help health care planners and decision-makers set priorities and increase public awareness and interest in the prevention of diabetes.