Diabetes and the Rise of the SES Health Gradient

James Smith

NBER Working Paper No. 12905
Issued in February 2007
NBER Program(s):Economics of Aging, Health Care, Health Economics

This paper investigates the salient diabetes prevalence patterns across key SES indicators, and how they changed over time. The investigation spans both the conventional concept of diagnosed diabetes and a more comprehensive measure including those whose diabetes is undiagnosed. By doing so, I separate the distinct impact of covariates on disease onset, better self-management, and the probability of disease diagnosis. Emphasis is given to SES correlates of undiagnosed diabetes and how these changed as those with undiagnosed diabetes plummeted over the last 25 years. I estimate the differential ability by education to successful self-manage diabetes, especially when disease self-management became more complicated.

A non-technical summary of this paper is available in the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w12905