DIABETES-MELLITUS AND EMPLOYMENT - SURVEY OF A NEW-ZEALAND WORKFORCE

A cross-sectional survey of a 5670 multiracial New Zealand workforce aged >40 years was used to determine the health status of people with diabetes mellitus in employment. One hundred and two workers (73 men, 29 women) had known diabetes mellitus (prevalence of 1.8 %) of whom 91 individuals (89.2 %) had Type 2 diabetes. Mean age of diabetic workers was 51.1 +/- 5.6 (SD) years and median duration of disease was 5.0 (range 0-51) years. Most subjects were asymptomatic, although only 31.4 % of diabetic workers had fasting glucose concentrations and 35.5 % had fructosamine concentrations within the mean +/- 2SD range of a matched control group. Moreover, 22.5 % of diabetic participants had fasting hypertriglyceridaemia and 21.6 % had microalbuminuria. Ethnicity (non-European vs European) and lack of insulin therapy were the most important predictors of poor glycaemic control. We advocate more aggressive therapy with insulin and with culturally sensitive education programmes to avert long-term macrovascular complications.