Summary
Nearly 1.5 million California adults have been diagnosed with diabetes, and at least1.8 million more are at significant risk for the condition—including a large number of individuals who currently have diabetes but have not yet been diagnosed. In addition, more than 12,000 adolescents ages 12-17 have been diagnosed with diabetes, and approximately 176,000 adolescents — 6% of the state’s undiagnosed adolescent population — are at risk for adult obesity, the predominant contributor to Type 2 diabetes, due to their being sedentary and overweight or at risk for being overweight.
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States; a major cause of nontraumatic amputations, blindness, and endstage kidney disease; and a significant risk factor for coronary heart disease and stroke. In California, as growing rates of obesity send the rates of Type 2 diabetes to unprecedented levels, there are also troubling indications of insufficient efforts at prevention and education, as well as barriers in the health care system that are resulting in an alarming number of cases in which diabetes is not appropriately managed, putting individuals in jeopardy.
This policy brief presents these and other findings from the 2001 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS 2001), California’s largest representative health survey of the state and its counties.