National Prevalence of Diabetes and Barriers to Care Among U.S. Farmworkers and Association With Migrant Worker Status.

Objective: To quantify the prevalence of diabetes and barriers to care among U.S. migrant farmworkers (i.e., those who travel from their permanent residence for seasonal farmwork).

Research Design And Methods: Age-adjusted prevalence of self-reported diabetes and barriers to care were calculated among adult U.S. farmworkers from 2008 to 2017 National Agricultural Workers Surveys.

Results: Among 16,913 farmworkers, 30.7% reported one or more barriers to care, most often due to cost. Age-adjusted self-reported prevalence of diabetes was 13.51% (95% CI 10.0-17.1) among migrant farmworkers and 10.8% (95% CI 9.0-12.6) among nonmigrant farmworkers with access to health care. Migrant farmworkers without recent health care had 83% lower odds of reporting known diabetes (adjusted odds ratio 0.17; 95% CI 0.06-0.54) compared with nonmigrant farmworkers, likely because of poor health care access and/or a healthy worker effect.

Conclusions: Many migrant farmworkers face barriers to care, which may lead to significant underdiagnosis of diabetes in this vulnerable population.