Impact of diabetes on individual,

We relate regional differences of diabetes in Europe to socio-economic, health and lifestyle variables. The adjusted odds of diabetes incidence is two-fold higher in Eastern and Southern Europe than in the West.

Regional differences are strongly heterogenous across the risk factors. Diabetes prevention should be emphasised among high-risk individuals in the East and South. Abstract We examine regional differences in diabetes within Europe, and relate them to variations in socio-economic conditions, comorbidities, health behaviour and diabetes management.

We use the SHARE Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe data of 15 European countries and 28, individuals, who participated both in the 4th and 7th year and waves of the survey. First, we estimate multivariate regressions, where the outcome variables are diabetes prevalence, diabetes incidence, and weight loss due to diet as an indicator of management.

Second, we study the heterogeneous impact of demographic, socio-economic, health and lifestyle indicators on the regional differences in diabetes incidence with impact of diabetes on individual random forests.

Compared to Western Europe, the odds of a new diabetes diagnosis over a six-year horizon is 2.

Adjusting for individual characteristics, the odds ratio decreases to 1. These remaining differences are mostly explained by country-specific healthcare indicators.

Based on the causal forest approach, the adjusted East-West difference is essentially zero for the lowest risk groups tertiary education, employment, no hypertension, no overweight and increases substantially with these risk factors, but the South-West difference is much less heterogeneous.

The prevalence of diet-related weight loss around the time of diagnosis also exhibits regional variation. The results suggest that the regional differences in diabetes incidence could be reduced by putting more emphasis on diabetes prevention among high-risk individuals in Eastern and Southern Europe.