Diabetes A1c registry is launched in New York City

Labs are sending blood glucose scores to health departments, and physicians are pondering ways to use the data to better control an epidemic of diabetes.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Jan. 23, 2006.

Washington -- New York City has launched a massive effort to collect and compile the hemoglobin A1c scores of all the men, women and children with diabetes in the five boroughs -- an estimated 530,000 people. Another 265,000 New Yorkers are thought to have it but have yet to be diagnosed.

The registry is intended to provide information that can be used to devise ways to help patients and their physicians better control blood sugar levels. It will gather A1c scores from patients with all diabetes types.

"It's an enormous undertaking," said Diana Berger, MD, medical director of the city's Diabetes Prevention and Control Program. The resulting database could be the largest chronic disease registry in the country, she said.

The project also will harness traditional public health tools to the task of lowering the rate of diabetes in the city. "Chronic disease accounts for about two-thirds of the disease burden, but public health tools are really underutilized for chronic disease prevention and tracking," she said.

The time is definitely right to wage all-out war on diabetes, many physicians note. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that 20.8 million Americans, or 7% of the U.S. population, has diabetes, up from 18.2 million in 2003. Since 1987, the death rate due to diabetes increased by 45%, while death rates due to heart disease, stroke and cancer declined.

New York City has been hit particularly hard. The South Bronx, for example, has one of the highest prevalence rates in the nation. Some 48,000 people, or 18% of the population, are thought to have the disease.