Date Available

4-23-2024

Year of Publication

2023

Document Type

Graduate Capstone Project

Degree Name

Master of Public Health (M.P.H.)

College

Public Health

Faculty

Beth Lacy

Faculty

Richard Ingram

Faculty

Kathleen Winter

Abstract

During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic it was seen that diabetes was a risk factor for severe COVID-19. The objective of this study is to assess the severity of diabetes at diagnosis during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to pre-pandemic to see how the pandemic and SARS-CoV-2 infection impacted the severity of diabetes. This study used University of Kentucky electronic health records of 13,794 patients who developed diabetes. The majority of patients were female, white non-Hispanic, 65+, and living in an urban area. There were differences seen between the COVID-19 positive and negative cohorts in the DKA and HbA1c variables, with the differences in the HbA1c variable being significant. In our data there was a slight increase in DKA frequency at diagnosis of diabetes for the COVID-19 negative cohort, and a slight decrease in the COVID-19 positive cohort. Both pandemic cohorts had lower HbA1c values than the pre-pandemic cohort. These findings were not explicitly contradictory to what other studies have found; however, other studies have found a significant increase in diabetes incidence and diabetes severity following the COVID-19 pandemic. This topic should be investigated further because of the worldwide impact of diabetes.

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