Moving to lower-poverty areas may significantly reduce type 2 diabetes risk in Ontario

Canadian research indicates that relocating from high-poverty neighbourhoods to more affluent areas could lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, highlighting the impact of environment on health outcomes.

New Canadian research suggests that moving out of a high-poverty neighbourhood may be linked to a lower chance of developing type 2 diabetes, adding to evidence that health is shaped not only by personal choices but also by the places people live. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Milan and drew on a large population study from Ontario, according to the report from News Medical.

Sharmin Majumder of the University of Toronto and colleagues analysed health data for almost 1.93 million adults in Ontario who were free of diabetes at the start of the study and were living in areas where at least 30% of households were below Statistics Canada’s after-tax Low-Income Cut-Off. Participants, who had an average age of 42.1 and were about half female, were followed for up to 21 years. The researchers compared people who moved from a high-poverty area to a less deprived neighbourhood with those who moved to another high-poverty area and those who did not move. To reduce the risk that the groups differed in important ways before the move, they used inverse probability weighting, a statistical technique designed to make observational groups more comparable on measured characteristics.

The analysis found that people who relocated from a high-poverty neighbourhood to a lower-poverty one developed type 2 diabetes at a 24% lower rate than those who moved to another high-poverty area. Their risk was 57% lower than that of people who stayed in the same high-poverty neighbourhood throughout the follow-up period. The researchers said the pattern suggests that neighbourhood conditions may matter in their own right, although the study was observational and cannot prove that the move itself caused the lower risk.

The team said the difference may reflect a cluster of factors that tend to vary with neighbourhood deprivation, including access to affordable healthy food, safer streets and more walkable environments, green space, air quality, noise levels and the availability of health and community services. Experts on inverse probability weighting note that the method is widely used in epidemiology to help address confounding, but it still depends on correctly measured factors and cannot remove every source of bias. Majumder said the findings could help inform urban revitalisation and efforts to improve disadvantaged communities through better housing, safer recreational spaces and stronger local resources.