Juliet Addo
GlaxoSmithKline | UK
Title: Parental education and anthropometric indicators of childhood malnutrition as risk factors of type 2 diabetes in a multi-center cross-sectional study among Ghanaian migrants in Europe and their compatriots in Ghana: The RODAM Study
Biography
Biography: Juliet Addo
Abstract
Statement of the Problem: Early-life experiences may impact on the metabolic health of individuals in later life but few
studies have explored this association in African populations. In this study, childhood socioeconomic status and childhood
malnutrition were evaluated as risk factors for type 2 diabetes (T2D) among adults in rural and urban Ghana and among
Ghanaian migrants in Europe.
Methods: Data were derived from the multi-center, cross-sectional Research on Obesity and Diabetes among African Migrants
(RODAM) Study. The associations of parental education and anthropometric markers of childhood malnutrition [leg length,
leg length-to-height ratio (LHR)] with T2D were investigated using logistic regression models.
Findings: Among 5,575 participants (mean age 46.2 SD 11.1 years; 62% female), the crude prevalence rates for T2D were 11%
in men and 8% in women. There was a gradient for increasing parental education from rural Ghana through urban Ghana to
Europe among both men and women, and this was also true for leg length among males. Lower father’s education tended to
increase the odds of T2D in women (1.50; 95% CI: 0.96, 2.36) but not in men (0.74; 95% CI: 0.43, 1.30). Among men, lower
quintiles of leg length tended to increase the odds of T2D (OR per 1 SD leg length decrease: 1.11; 95% CI: 0.95, 1.30). The
strongest leg LHR gender difference was seen in rural Ghana, OR 1.83 (95% CI: 0.94, 3.57) and 0.93 (95% CI: 0.60, 1.42) for
men and women respectively.
Conclusion & Significance: Further studies examining the association of early life socioeconomic and nutritional factors
with T2D are needed in low and middle-income populations with reported increasing burden of T2D occurring alongside an
unfinished agenda of malnutrition and other poverty related diseases. Interventions to prevent T2D may need to target the
early life period and adults who experienced lower socioeconomic status during childhood.
Recent Publications
1. Addo J, Agyemang C, de-Graft Aikins A, Beune E, Schulze MB, Danquah I, et al. Association between socioeconomic
position and the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Ghanaians in different geographic locations: the RODAM study. Journal
of epidemiology and community health. 2017;71(7):633-9.
2. Agyemang C, Nyaaba G, Beune E, Meeks K, Owusu-Dabo E, Addo J, et al. Variations in hypertension awareness,
treatment, and control among Ghanaian migrants living in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, and nonmigrant Ghanaians
living in rural and urban Ghana - the RODAM study. Journal of hypertension. 2018;36(1):169-77.
3. Agyemang C, Beune E, Meeks K, Addo J, Aikins AD, Bahendeka S, et al. Innovative ways of studying the effect of
migration on obesity and diabetes beyond the common designs: lessons from the RODAM study. Annals of the New
York Academy of Sciences. 2017;1391(1):54-70.
4. Adjei DN, Stronks K, Adu D, Beune E, Meeks K, Smeeth L, et al. Chronic kidney disease burden among African migrants
in three European countries and in urban and rural Ghana: the RODAM cross-sectional study. Nephrology, dialysis,
transplantation : official publication of the European Dialysis and Transplant Association - European Renal Association.
2018.
5. Agyemang C, Beune E, Meeks K, Owusu-Dabo E, Agyei-Baffour P, Aikins A, et al. Rationale and cross-sectional
study design of the Research on Obesity and type 2 Diabetes among African Migrants: the RODAM study. BMJ open.
2014;4(3):e004877.