RESEARCH Disparities in diabetes me v

Kingston, West Indies, Jamaica Full list of author information is available at the end of the articlein adults was estimated to be 4.0 % and projected to rise to 5.4 % by the year 2025 [1]. However by 2011, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimated the global prevalence of diabetes mellitus to be 8.3 % and projected a rise to 9.9 % by 2030. In absolute numbers, this translates to 366 million persons with diabetes mel-litus in 2011 which will rise to 552 million people by overall prevalence of diabetes mellitus is estimated to be approximately 9 % [3] and is responsible for 13.8 % of all deaths among adults in the region [2]. Diabetes mellitus is therefore one of the major public health challenges for the Caribbean in the twenty-first century. Researchers have found that patterns in allocation of resources and differential access to care directly influ-ence health in population sub-groups [4]. This has led to the emergence of the study of these differences or health disparities as a major focus of research and public healt