Reducing Healthcare Disparities

We All Own the Problem

June 25, 2010

Marcea Bland Lloyd, JD

The numbers are staggering. Thirteen percent of African American adults over the age of 20 have been diagnosed with diabetes. Figures are equally shocking for Latinos (10 percent) and American Indians and Alaska Natives (16.5 percent). Among Caucasians, the comparable prevalence figure is six percent.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 1 in 3 American children born after 2000 will be diagnosed with diabetes, and the odds are worse—nearly 1 in 2—for African American and Latino children. Once diagnosed, African Americans are twice as likely to be hospitalized, and twice as likely to die from their disease as Caucasian patients who have diabetes. In other minority communities, including Latino and American Indian and Alaska Native communities, the trend lines are similar, if not much steeper.

Much attention has been paid to understanding the root causes of these dramatic differences – including increased poverty in minority communities, sub-standard healthcare, lack of insurance coverage, a paucity of healthy food choices, and the well-documented difficulty for anyone to adopt lasting lifestyle changes.

Understanding the drivers has done nothing to slow the explosive growth of diabetes or improve the care people in minority communities receive.

If we have learned one thing so far it’s that there is no magic solution to this problem. No single program or initiative will make a dent until we all begin to more fully own the problem as a society. Each of us in the healthcare system has to do more, as well as work together more creatively over a sustained period, before we will start to see these disastrous trends turn around.

Healthcare providers must commit to assertively managing all cases of diabetes and pre-diabetes, rather than assuming that even one of their patients is destined to their fate, or is unable to make lifestyle changes, or is unable to afford the right medications.

Patients must ask questions, get informed, become their own advocates, and push for a different fate. We all need to fight for better care, while also challenging ourselves to adopt the lifestyle changes that have eluded us so far.

Insurers and government payers must make a real and lasting commitment to the long-term health of the people they cover, supporting strong prevention programs, aggressive disease management, and broad access to innovative therapies. Let’s remember, these steps make as much economic sense as they do common sense.  In fact, we need to encourage the government to better understand the patient populations who are most acutely impacted by diabetes and the corollary costs associated with managing the disease in those populations. Diabetes is the fifth leading cause of death by disease in the U.S. and costs approximately $174 billion per year in direct and indirect medical expenses. Earlier, and more aggressive treatment, could help to stem this financial tide.

Community leaders must seek new and more creative partnerships that will enable them to drive lasting change, and to sustain programs over enough time to have a lasting impact.

Pharmaceutical companies (including Amylin) must continue to work on researching and developing innovative therapies that transform the way diabetes is managed and treated. This kind of innovation will help us understand more about the disease and will result in better tools for patients and healthcare providers.

We all must own the reality that, behind the mind-numbing statistics about diabetes in minority communities, there are real people, real families, and real communities who are struggling with a growing crisis. They deserve our help.

Marcea Bland Lloyd is Amylin’s Senior Vice President, Government & Corporate Affairs and General Counsel.

For more related articles, click Health Care Perspectives.