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Socio-economic status, body mass index and incident type 2 diabetes
Safe People
Organisation name
University of Edinburgh
Applicant name(s)
Sarah Wild
Funders/ Sponsors
Data-Driven Innovation (Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal)
Safe Projects
Project ID
DL_2024_017
Lay summary
In Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom type 2 diabetes is more common in people who live in more deprived areas. We do not know whether this can be explained by different patterns of overweight and obesity in more and less deprived areas. This project will use records from GPs (from which names, addresses and other identifiable information such as full date of birth have been removed) to describe how many people in Lothian were given their first diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in 2022 and 2023 and compare the proportions between people in the most and least deprived fifth of the population. We will also compare weight patterns in people who received a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in 2022 and 2023 with those of people of a similar age and the same sex and find out if differences in weight patterns appear to explain any differences linked to deprivation.
Public benefit statement
Prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing and widening socio-economic inequalities have been reported in Scotland between 2007 and 2019. The extent to which these inequalities can be attributed to overweight and obesity is not certain. Provision of effective methods to support weight management for primary and secondary prevention is increasing but it is possible that such interventions may further widen health inequalities. The number of people with incident (newly diagnosed) type 2 diabetes in Lothian in 2022 and 2023 was 6800. Improving support for weight management is a priority for people with and at-risk of developing diabetes and their service providers but all are aware that demand outstrips supply which is why approaches to digital weight management are being introduced. The potential benefits of this work to the NHS is to establish a baseline against which it will be possible to assess possible intervention-generated inequalities and also to inform targeted use of limited resources.
Request category type
Public Health Research
Other approval committees
Latest approval date
03/04/2024
Safe Data
Dataset(s) name
Data sensitivity level
De-Personalised
Safe Setting
Access type
TRE