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Box 4.7

Diabetes: A global trend

China’s skyrocketing diabetes prevalence stands out from similar economies.
The prevalence has risen by an order of magnitude from < 1% in 1980, to
9.7% in 2007, to 11.6% in 2010, with rates expected to increase further due
to half the country’s population meeting the American Diabetes Association’s
criteria for prediabetes. On the contrary, studies from the United States, the
United Kingdom, Denmark, and Korea indicate that their incidence rates have
largely stabilised.

Age and economic development may be linked to the increasing prevalence
of diabetes in China. Consequently, Hong Kong may be suggestive of such
trends towards an expansion of the prevalence of DM and subsequent
stabilisation, given its significant Chinese population.
This finding does not stand alone. A study conducted between 1997 and
2008 featuring 230,503 United States adults found that Asian Americans
were more likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes relative to their White
counterparts, despite having a lower BMI on average. In fact, Asian-Americans
were found to be 30–50% more likely to develop DM in comparison.

Sources: Lee et al., 2011; Quan et al., 2017

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