What’s New
Click here to access our 2009 Alberta Diabetes Atlas, released on November 12, 2009. The Atlas contains information on the number of people living with diabetes in Alberta, their related health conditions, and the health services they use. New sections include: health care utilization costs of diabetes to the health system, as well as epidemiological trends for children and adolescents.
Click here to view our latest newsletter entitled ‘Diabetes Prevalence by Alberta Communities’. In it, we have profiled diabetes prevalence for communities in Alberta with a population of at least 1000 people. To download the figure of this newsletter, click here.
The Public Health Agency of Canada recently announced that the ADSS team will receive a second year of funding to continue its active dissemination efforts. The ADSS team's activities include community visits throughout the province, as well as continued support for the development of its interactive website, which will launch later this year.
We have recently created a figure that highlights diabetes prevalence in different Alberta communities. It’s interesting to note the Alberta communities with the highest and lowest prevalence. Click here to see more.
Featured Publications
and Reports
Diabetes in Alberta
The Alberta Diabetes Surveillance System (ADSS) provides an overall picture of the burden of diabetes in the province and a system to monitor trends of diabetes and its complications over time. The system tracks the number of people living with diabetes in Alberta, their related health conditions, and the health services they use. This information helps health care providers and policy makers understand the scope of the disease and how to deal with it. The ADSS is a partnership between the Institute of Health Economics/ACHORD and Alberta Health and Wellness.
By The Numbers
- More than 163,000 people living in Alberta have diabetes. That’s more than 1 in every 20 people.
- 15,802 new diabetes cases were identified in 2007. That’s more than 1,300 new cases a month or 43 per day.
- Diabetes rates have almost doubled in the past decade.
- Adults with diabetes see family physicians and specialists 2-3
times more often than adults without diabetes and spend almost 3
more days in hospital
compared to their non-diabetic counterparts. - In 2007, the total average costs (physician, hospital and emergency department costs) for people with diabetes was 3 to 4 times higher than costs for people without diabetes.
- People with diabetes are twice as likely to die than people without diabetes; most people with diabetes die from heart attacks or strokes.
- After accounting for age, Edmonton and North zones had the highest prevalence of diabetes and Calgary zone had the lowest prevalence of diabetes in the province.
- It is estimated that 90-95% of all diabetes cases are type 2 (typically adult onset), and only 5-10% are type 1 (insulin dependent, usually diagnosed in childhood).