Background: The incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and its complications has been increasing worldwide with an increasing provision of long-term medications and health services. This study aimed to assess the healthcare costs for T2DM patients for vulnerable ethnic minority.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from October 13, 2016, to June 19, 2017, in two public hospitals in Ningxia, China. Eligible Hui and Han inpatients were recruited and interviewed. Ethnic disparities in annual healthcare expenditures for T2DM measured from a societal perspective and its associations of expenditures with other factors were analyzed by linear and quantile regressions.
Results: Ethnic disparities in annual healthcare expenditures for T2DM were demonstrated, mainly reflecting differences in the cost of productivity loss. The quantile of annual healthcare expenditure showed significant ethnic disparities in T2DM patients with complications. At the 10th to 50th quantiles of healthcare expenditures, Hui patients had significantly lower expenditures than Han patients in both unadjusted and adjusted models. Non-significant difference in expenditures between Hui and Han patients was found at the 90th quantile of expenditure in the unadjusted model, but significantly higher expenditures for Hui patients were shown when adjusted for socioeconomic and clinical factors.
Conclusion: T2DM Hui patients faced significantly higher expenditures than Han patients when the costs of healthcare were high. Appropriate national policy considering the issue of ethnic minority should be further explored to improve health and subsidize economic burden for T2DM patients.
Keywords: Annual healthcare expenditures; Ethnic disparity; Quantile regression; Type 2 diabetes mellitus.