The objective of this pilot study is to generate empiric counseling risks for use in counseling patients and families as well as to identify risk factors that contribute to the development and course of type 2 diabetes (DM-2) in African Americans and Hispanics in Central Los Angeles. Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a common disorder usually of middle-aged individuals and, if untreated, complications can arise. DM-2 is one of the top ten health problems in the United States and the prevalence in African Americans is estimated to be 10% and in Hispanics, 15%. These communities are also at greater risk for developing long-term complications of diabetes such as retinopathy (including blindness). An alarming new trend is an increase in DM-2 among young people especially Hispanics and African Americans. DM-2 has also been shown to have a disproportionate impact among ethnic seniors. We plan to use family studies gathered by personal interviews and questionnaires to obtain the necessary informati on from our DM-2 patients. 100 adult African American patients and 100 adult Hispanic patients in diabetes clinics at King Drew Medical Center and its outlying clinics will be interviewed. Interviews of non English speaking Hispanics will be conducted in Spanish.
The specific aims of our project are 1. To develop empiric counseling risks using the information gathered from the family history studies and 2. to explore within our families those risk factors which in other studies have not been looked at in detail. These include the regions of origin in Mexican-Americans; acculturation factors; maternal pregnancy factors; birth weight; birth order; obesity in the family members. We anticipate that the information gathered from our pilot study will suggest testable hypothesis for future more focused studies.
