1613-P: The Veterans Administration Diabetes Risk Cohort: Profile and Diabetes Incidence

Background: The Veterans Administration (VA) cares for over 8 million U.S. veterans annually, approximately 20% of whom have prevalent diabetes. To foster research and intervention opportunities, we developed the VA Diabetes Risk (VADR) Cohort using the VA electronic health record, a national cohort of diabetes-free U.S. veterans receiving primary care at the VA since January 1, 2008. This cohort provides important opportunities to study community-level risk factors for diabetes, such as attributes of the food environment, via geospatial linkage to residence information. We describe here the cohort profile and diabetes incidence by sub-group.

Methods: To be eligible, diabetes-free patients had to have at least 2 primary care visits at least 30 days apart prior to enrollment. Diabetes incidence was defined as having ≥2 inpatient or outpatient encounters with diabetes ICD-9/10 codes, any prescription of diabetes medicine, or one encounter with diabetes ICD-9/10 codes and ≥2 hemoglobin A1C ≥6.5%. The incidence of diabetes was calculated as the number of new cases diagnosed per 1000 person-years (PY) through December 31, 2018. Demographic and comorbidities data were abstracted using diagnostic codes, labs, prescriptions, and vital signs.

Results: The VADR cohort consisted of 6.17 million veterans, the majority of whom were male (91.7%) and non-Hispanic (NH) white (75.7%). Nearly half were above 60 years of age at enrollment (48.8%). The diabetes incidence rate was 27.0 per 1000 PY, increasing with age from 13.3 per 1000 PY among adults <45 years old to 41.8 per 1000 PY among those 65 years and older. Incidence was higher among men than women (34.6 vs. 18.6 per 1000 PY) and higher among NH black patients compared to NH white patients (38 vs. 31.7 per 1000 PY).

Conclusions: The VADR cohort provides a novel infrastructure for examination of community-level risk factors for diabetes among veterans, and facilitates assessment of the impact of national or regional strategies to prevent or manage diabetes in veterans.