629-P: Unique Associations between Health Insurance and HbA1c in Adults with Type 1 Diabetes

Abstract

Diabetes outcomes are affected by socioeconomic factors including health insurance. While some research has examined the impact of health insurance in people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) (e.g., disruptions in health insurance on health outcomes) , it is less clear whether health insurance type (e.g., private versus government-sponsored) shares a unique association with diabetes outcomes. Thus, we examined relationships between demographics, socioeconomic status, and health insurance type with HbA1c in adults in the T1D Exchange Registry - an online longitudinal study of people living with T1D. Participants (N = 7725) were 42.2 years old (SD = 14.6) on average and 75.4% reported their gender as female. Most participants (92.2%) reported their race as White and 5.1% identified as Hispanic. Many participants used insulin pumps (71.3%) and continuous glucose monitors (CGM, 83.0%) . Self-reported HbA1c was 7.3% (SD = 1.58) on average. Health insurance type was categorized into private (79.0%) , Medicaid (9.6%) , Medicare (9.5%) , or no health insurance (1.9%) . Health insurance type, demographic factors (i.e., age, gender, race, ethnicity) , socioeconomic factors (i.e., income, education level) , and diabetes technology use (i.e., insulin pump, CGM) were entered simultaneously into a linear regression with HbA1c as the outcome variable. Private insurance was used as the reference group. Statistical significance was set at p < .05. We found lower HbA1c was associated with identifying race as White (Β = -0.21) , having higher income (Β = -0.10) , having higher education (Β = -0.17) , using an insulin pump (Β = -0.46) and using CGM (Β = -0.72) . Higher HbA1c was associated with identifying as female (Β = 0.14) and having either Medicaid (Β = 0.23) or no health insurance (Β = 0.30) . These results suggest, above and beyond other socioeconomic and demographic factors, health insurance type may contribute to small but meaningful differences in HbA1c. Disclosure C.Kelly: None. H.Nguyen: None. J.Liu: None. K.S.M.Chapman: None. M.Peter: None. C.Leon: None. K.Laferriere: None. J.Ravelson: None. W.Wolf: None.