Research
Mixed
Poverty is associated with higher rates of diabetes, contributing significantly to healthcare costs, suggesting that addressing poverty could mitigate the 'diabesity' epidemic.
For policymakers, investing in poverty reduction and community infrastructure (parks, safe spaces) may be more cost-effective than treating diabetes complications, given the high per-patient cost ($9k/year).
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
For instance, counties with greatest rates of poverty have greatest diabetes rates too... Halting U.S. diabesity epidemic and curtailing its health cost may necessitate addressing poverty.
Why this rating
Ecological correlation; uses census and health statistics.
Source
Poverty and Obesity in the U.S.
James A. Levine · Diabetes · 2011
DOI 10.2337/db11-1118
narrative_reviewCited 252×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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