Original researchUtilization of health resources in South Asian, Chinese and White patients with diabetes mellitus

AimsWe sought to determine whether there are differences in health resource utilization among South Asian (SA), Chinese and White patients with newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus.MethodsWe used province-wide administrative data from British Columbia, Canada (1997-2006) to determine proportion of patients with ≥2 visits/year for all outpatient and family physician (FP) visits, proportion of patients with at least one annual visit to specialists, ophthalmology/optometry and hospital admissions by ethnic group.ResultsThere were 9529 South Asian, 14,084 Chinese and 143,630 White patients with newly diagnosed diabetes in the study. Over 90% of each of the ethnic groups visited their FP ≥2 visits/year. Chinese patients were less likely to visit FP, ophthalmology/optometrists and specialists compared to White patients. SA patients had fewer ophthalmology/optometry visits compared to White populations. White patients had higher rates of hospitalization.ConclusionAlthough all groups had high proportion of patients with appropriate frequency of FP visits, other aspects of health care utilization varied significantly by ethnicity.