The aggregate effect of diabetes on economic development

Abstract

This paper aims at examining the interactions between economic development level and diabetes prevalence rate. With increasing income, people tend to spend more on food without any moderation, but meanwhile people from richer countries are also able to spend more on health care. China and U.S. are the two largest diabetes population in the world, with China as an example of developing countries and U.S. as a developed country. For this paper, we use National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for U.S. sample and China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) for China sample. In 2000, prevalence rate of diabetes in 2000 is 4.63%, and it rose to 7.32% in 2011. Rising in prevalence rate of diabetes is consistent with China data, with a 1.05% in 2000 and 3.10% in 2011. [1st Award]