Health inequalities among persons with type 2 diabetes: the example of intermittent claudication.

In Germany, high quality health care is offered to just about all socio-economic groups. The question is rarely asked, though, if there are social differences in the utilisation and quality of health care among those with similar needs. These differences are analysed by looking at a group of persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Another group of persons without diabetes is included as well. The data are taken from the KORA-A Study in Augsburg, southern Germany. KORA-A is a case-control study based on patients with type 2 diabetes from the MONICA surveys S2 (1989/90), S3 (1994/95) and the Myocardial Infarction Registry, and controls, matched by age and sex to the cases. In 1997/98, these persons were contacted for the KORA-A study. The dataset includes data from 378 type 2 diabetic patients. The group without diabetes comprises 438 persons. The results indicate that the prevalence of "pain while walking" increases with decreasing educational level, and that this association is stronger for persons with type 2 diabetes (OR 3.53; 95 % CI 1.32 - 9.44) than for persons without diabetes (OR 2.02; 95 % CI 0.97 - 4.23). The prevalence of intermittent claudication can serve as an indirect assessment of the quality of health care received by diabetic persons. It is concluded that health care should be improved especially for those persons with type 2 diabetes who belong to the group with low socioeconomic status.