And right after a bread post, no less!
I was sure the USA would have won this hands-down:
We're fourth place behind Pakistan? Oh, the shame. Work harder, fellow Americans!
But that's raw numbers, not percentages. This is more like it (from 2015):
New and detailed data from the new International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Diabetes Atlas, released at this week’s World Diabetes Congress in Vancouver, Canada (Nov 30-Dec 4) reveals that, unsurprisingly, the United States has the highest prevalence (11% of the population aged 20-79 years) of diabetes among developed nations. This league table includes countries of the European Union plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Israel, Andorra, Norway, Switzerland, and the U.S. itself.
And in terms of estimates of absolute numbers of people with diabetes in these nations, the U.S., with almost 30 million people with diabetes, has around two thirds the number of cases of all the other 37 nations in the developed nation league combined (46 million).
In terms of prevalence, Singapore finished a close second to the U.S. (10.5%), followed by Malta (10%), Portugal (10%), and Cyprus (9.5%) in 3rd, 4th, and 5th place respectively. The countries with the lowest estimated prevalence in the 38 nation league were (lowest first), Lithuania, Estonia, and Ireland (all around 4%), followed by Sweden, Luxembourg, the U.K., and Australia (all around 5%). Canada, the host nation for the World Diabetes Congress, has the 12th highest prevalence, at 7%.
Just another example of how statistics can be made to say what you want. Didn't look too deeply at the two studies you linked, but if Pakistan actually has a higher absolute number of diabetics AND they have a lower population, then how could they have a lower % of diabetics?
ReplyDeleteLike most things, the extremes play out their narratives, and the truth is somewhere in the middle.