Local data shows that doctors do a better job at ordering key tests for controlling patients’ diabetes for their white patients than their Black counterparts. For white patients, doctors order such tests on average 62% of the time. For Black patients that measure fell to 58%. It was even lower for Latino patients, 56%.
On a national scale, diabetes impacts one in six Black people and one in 10 white people. About 24% of Black people and 29% of Hispanic/Latino people who have diabetes have uncontrolled diabetes, compared with 11% of white diabetes patients.
In Marion County, where Black people make up 20% of the population, 37% of those who receive diabetes care are Black patients, said Dr. Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds, vice president and chief health equity officer at IU Health.
