ORIGINAL PAPER Disparities in Self-Reported Diabetes Mellitus among Arab, Chaldean, and Black Americans in Southeast Michigan

Abstract Diabetes mellitus is an important public health problem that disproportionately affects minorities. Using a cross sectional, convenience sample, we estimated the prevalence of self-reported diabetes for Whites (n = 212), Arabs (n = 1,303), Chaldeans (n = 828), and Blacks (n = 789) in southeast Michigan. In addition, using a logistic regression model, we estimated odds ratios and 95 % confidence intervals for the association between eth-nicity and diabetes before and after adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic status, health care, chronic conditions, and health behavior variables. The overall age-and sex-adjusted prevalence of diabetes was 7.0%. Esti-mates were highest for Blacks (8.0%) followed by Arabs and Whites (7.0 % for each group) and Chaldeans (6.0%). In the fully adjusted model, the association between eth-nicity and diabetes was not statistically significant. Future studies should collect more detailed socioeconomic status, acculturation and health behavior information, which are factors that may affect the relationship between race/ ethnicity and diabetes