Diabetes and Public Housing

Abstract

Public housing residents have worse health than the general population including chronic diseases such as diabetes. Knowledge of which specific populations within public housing residents have chronic conditions is essential for public health agencies to implement efficient health promotion programs. This cross-sectional design study was conducted using data collected from Data Across Sectors for Housing and Health partnership in King County, WA. Total population included were Medicaid and medicare beneficiaries compiled from Washington Health Care Authority (n= 585,372). Associations between public housing and diabetes status were estimated using odds ratios and corresponding 95% confidence intervals from crude and adjusted models. Further associations were determined between individual public housing authorities and diabetes status using the same crude and adjusted models. Among study participants, 10.4% received some form of public housing assistance in 2017. In total, 9.9% were considered to have diabetes. The adjusted model revealed that public housing residents were 1.94 times (95% CI: 1.88-1.99) more likely to meet the diabetes definition compared to those not receiving housing assistance. These findings suggest that public housing residents are more likely to be diabetic. Further studies should explore the relationship between public housing and diabetes over a longer period to discern the direction of the association over time. Findings from this study can be used to inform future interventions for diabetes treatment by both public health and housing agencies.