Reading Diabetes Prevalence in India: Awareness vs. Affluence

Abstract

Abstract The literature is convincing on increasing affluence being a driver of rising prevalence of diabetes that is verified here in terms of associating an additional dimension of awareness. Given the doubling of prevalence of diabetes in India in a span of 5 years based on a comparison between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5, this is an attempt towards dis-entangling bearing of affluence/awareness on the rising trend of diabetes. Here we compute the characteristics odds and its conditional equivalent to understand the influence of the twin axis of awareness and affluence represented by education and wealth quintile. The awareness level odds of experiencing diabetes have widened more than the same owing to affluence as indicated by the gap in odds of the two across categories over time. Overall findings suggest despite the systematic role of affluence in shaping the disease prevalence, rising awareness serves as a key to its compression.