The Social Determinants of Health Related to Diabetes Control–Yazd

Objective: Social determinant of health (SDH) are different from medical care and services. These factors themselves are affected by social policies, and they influence health more than medical care and services do. Due to the importance of chronic non-communicable diseases especially diabetes in Yazd, and assuming the effect of SDH, the present study was conducted in order to examine the relationship between diabetes control and SDH. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. The statistical population were diabetic patients who has referred to diabetes center of Yazd. Sampling method was systematic random selection. The study inclusion criteria was type II diabetes, and exclusion criteria were gestational diabetes, type I diabetes, lack of inclination to participate in the study, lack of access to the patient, death, and immigration from Yazd. In order to examine the SDH more precisely, a combined variable labeled “socioeconomic position (SEP)” including the patient’s place of residence and job was created. Results: Totally 511 type II diabetes patients were studied; 288 women (56.4%) and 223 men (43.6%). The mean age of participants was 56.68 years with a standard deviation (SD) of 10.566. Among patients 119 patients (23.3%) reported tobacco consumption. (Table 1) Out of the sample, 223 men whose mean (±SD) HbA1c was 8.6284±1.87 and 288 women whose mean (±SD) HbA1c was 8.6269±1.69 were reported to have no significant difference in terms of their gender and hemoglobin number (P-value=0.922). There were significant difference in HbA1c mean between different groups and SEP. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the role of social factors and also psychological and mental criteria in understanding the risk of chronic disease and health is due to the negative effects of economic and collective factors, and that the highest level of physical and mental risks is among patients who have experienced hard conditions over time.