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Background: Type II diabetes mellitus is a major health problem among Native Americans, and diabetic retinopathy is a frequent complication of this disease. Screening for retinopathy can identify early disease and prevent major vision loss, but the most cost-effective screening method has not yet been determined., Methods: In a rural clinic that served more than 400 Native Americans with diabetes, we compared the accuracy of referrals made based on two screening methods: ophthalmoscopy by trained primary care physicians and seven-view nonstereoscopic, mydriatic fundal photography read by two general ophthalmologists and a retinal specialist. Patients in whom abnormal findings were detected by either screening method were then referred to a general ophthalmologist for further evaluation., Results: Two hundred forty-three examinations were performed and 83 referrals made. Both screening methods had high sensitivity for referring patients with retinopathy that required treatment or follow-up sooner than 1 year (100% for direct ophthalmoscopy by primary care physicians, 94% for the general ophthalmologist photography readers, and 100% for the retinal specialist reader). The calculated costs of screening by direct ophthalmoscopy and by retinal photography were 64% less and 44% to 35% less, respectively, than the cost of yearly ophthalmological examinations by ophthalmologists., Conclusions: Careful screening for treatable diabetic eye disease by trained primary care physicians proved to be a clinically acceptable, cost-effective strategy. Screening methods for diabetic retinopathy should be evaluated based on the absolute sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of their ability to correctly refer patients rather than their diagnostic accuracy.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of severe diabetic complications., Research Design and Methods: We surveyed the data systems of the IHS and local care providers to identify all AI/AN people with any of three diabetic complications: retinopathy needing one or more laser treatments, ESRD needing dialysis, and one or more LEAs. We calculated prevalence rates that were sex-age adjusted to the U.S. population for total sample, each community, gender, and culture area., Results: Of the population-based complete sample with diabetes, 1.7% had retinopathy, 1% ESRD, and 4% LEA. Complication rates among the culture areas were not statistically different. The LEA rate among diabetic men (5.8%) was higher than that among women (2.3%). The odds ratio was 2.2 (95% CI 1.2-4.2). One community had an extraordinarily high LEA rate of 16%., Conclusions: This study showed that IHS can use its data systems to estimate prevalence of diabetic complications and identify population groups with higher prevalence rates. The data led the IHS clinic with the high LEA rate to start a program to prevent amputations. We suggest quality assurance activities based on the methods of this study.

The prevalence of diabetes among 29,000 American Indians living on or near 10 reservations in the Pacific Northwest was established from clinical data sources. The age- and sex-adjusted prevalence rate in 1987 was three times higher [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.8-3.1] than the comparable United States rate in 1980. The age-adjusted prevalence for women was 1.3 times that for men (95% CI 1.2-1.4). The prevalence varied by culture area. Reservation communities whose principal tribe came from the Great Basin culture area had 3.6 times more diabetes than found in the U.S. as a whole. Reservation communities whose principal tribe was from the Plateau culture had 3.0 times more diabetes than found in the U.S., and those from the Northwest Coast culture had 1.9 times more diabetes than found in the U.S. The reasons for these variations are unknown and warrant investigation.