Obesity is the Most Important Factor for Gender Inequality in Type 2 Diabetes Incidence in an Iranian Population

Ahamd Khosravi; Mohammad Hassan Emamian; Hassan Hashemi; Akbar Fotouhi

doi:10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_442_17

Obesity is the Most Important Factor for Gender Inequality in Type 2 Diabetes Incidence in an Iranian Population

Int J Prev Med. 2019 Dec 10:10:215. doi: 10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_442_17. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Ahamd Khosravi¹, Mohammad Hassan Emamian², Hassan Hashemi³, Akbar Fotouhi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran.
² Center for Health Related Social and Behavioral Sciences Research, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran.
³ Noor Research Center for Ophthalmic Epidemiology, Noor Eye Hospital, Tehran, Iran.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Background: The results of Shahroud Eye Cohort Study (ShECS) showed a high 5-year incidence of diabetes mellitus with female predominance in 40-64 years old Iranian population. The aim of this report was to decompose the observed sex differences in the incidence of diabetes.

Methods: Sex-specific incidence rate of diabetes was calculated between the two phases of ShECS (2009-2014). The gap decomposition was done by the twofold Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition model.

Results: The results showed that from the total gap (11.19%-15.55% = -4.36%) between the two sexes, 3.46% which forms 79.4% of the total gap is related to the difference in obesity in both genders. In contrast to obesity, age and overweigh status had a decreasing influence on gender inequality.

Conclusions: Obesity of Iranian women compared with men is the most important reason for an increase in the incidence of diabetes in women.

Keywords: Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition; Diabetes mellitus; Iran; Obesity; incidence rate.