Living High or Low: How Altitude and Place of Residence Affect Diabetes in North-East India

JAYANTA DAS , International Institute For Population Sciences

India is becoming a global hotspot for diabetes mellitus, driven by the several socio-demographic, behavioral and environmental factors that vary across different geographical regions, north-eastern part of India is not an exception. This research is aimed to assess how the sociodemographic and environmental factors influence the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in Northeast India focusing on the effect of altitude and place of residence. The study used the data from National Family Health Survey-5 for all north-eastern states and logistic regression analysis is applied to examine the association of various factors. The study reveals that spatial variability exists across the region and different environmental factors playing role in the variability diabetes prevalence. People residing in the rural areas having slightly lower odds (OR=.99, CI=.991-.991) of getting diabetes than the urban residence and people residing in higher altitude having lower odds (OR=.71, CI=.706-.707) of getting diabetes than the people residing in lower altitude areas. Result reveals people residing in high altitude urban areas are having lower odds than others, whereas people residing in urban low altitude areas having higher odds (CI=1.46, CI=1.457-1.458) than rest of the areas. The study reveals people who are residing in high altitude urban areas are less prone to getting diabetes than the people residing in high-altitude rural areas. Immediate intervention and policy formulation are required for the high-altitude rural areas as they are having higher prevalence than the high-altitude urban areas which is inverse of the general trend.

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 Presented in Session 110. Geography, Environment and the Role of Place in Health