Interaction between sex and rurality on the prevalence of diabetes in Guyana: a nationally representative study

Diabetes prevalence has never been measured in Guyana. We conducted a nationally representative cross-sectional study to estimate the prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes, and the association between sex and diabetes.

In 2016, the Ministry of Public Health led Guyana's first national STEPS survey among adults aged 18-69 years. Half of the participants were randomly selected for hemoglobin A_1c and fasting blood glucose testing. We estimated the prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes and measured the association between sex and diabetes prevalence using logistic regression to compute adjusted ORs.

We included 805 adults (511 women, 294 men, mean age 41.8 (SD 14.4) years). The national prevalence of diabetes was 18.1% (95% CI: 15.4% to 20.8%), with higher rates among women (21.4%, 95% CI: 18.0% to 24.7%) than men (15.1%, 95% CI: 10.9% to 19.3%). Sex-specific diabetes prevalence varied significantly across urban and rural areas (p=0.002 for interaction). In rural areas, diabetes was twice as common among women (24.1%, 95% CI: 20.1% to 28.2%) compared with men (11.8%, 95% CI: 7.7% to 15.9%). After adjusting for prespecified covariates, rural women had double the odds of diabetes compared with rural men (OR 2.1, 95% CI: 1.20 to 3.82). This prevalence pattern was reversed in urban areas (diabetes prevalence, women: 13.9%, 95% CI: 8.7% to 19.0%; men: 22.0%, 95% CI: 12.9% to 31.1%), with urban women having half the odds of diabetes compared with urban men (OR 0.4, 95% CI: 0.20 to 0.99). We estimated that nearly one-third of women and over a quarter of men had diabetes or pre-diabetes.

The burden of diabetes in Guyana is considerably higher than previously estimated, with an unexpectedly high prevalence among women-particularly in rural areas.