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Objective: We examined whether relative availability of fast-food restaurants and supermarkets mediates the association between worse neighborhood socioeconomic conditions and risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D).Research Design and Methods: As part of the Diabetes Location, Environmental Attributes, and Disparities Network, three academic institutions used harmonized environmental data sources and analytic methods in three distinct study samples: 1) the Veterans Administration Diabetes Risk (VADR) cohort, a national administrative cohort of 4.1 million diabetes-free veterans developed using electronic health records (EHRs); 2) Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS), a longitudinal, epidemiologic cohort with Stroke Belt region oversampling (N = 11,208); and 3) Geisinger/Johns Hopkins University (G/JHU), an EHR-based, nested case-control study of 15,888 patients with new-onset T2D and of matched control participants in Pennsylvania. A census tract-level measure of neighborhood socioeconomic environment (NSEE) was developed as a community type-specific z-score sum. Baseline food-environment mediators included percentages of 1) fast-food restaurants and 2) food retail establishments that are supermarkets. Natural direct and indirect mediating effects were modeled; results were stratified across four community types: higher-density urban, lower-density urban, suburban/small town, and rural.Results: Across studies, worse NSEE was associated with higher T2D risk. In VADR, relative availability of fast-food restaurants and supermarkets was positively and negatively associated with T2D, respectively, whereas associations in REGARDS and G/JHU geographies were mixed. Mediation results suggested that little to none of the NSEE-diabetes associations were mediated through food-environment pathways.Conclusions: Worse neighborhood socioeconomic conditions were associated with higher T2D risk, yet associations are likely not mediated through food-environment pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetes causes significant morbidity and mortality among adults in the US, yet incidence varies across the country, suggesting that neighborhood factors may contribute to geographic disparities in diabetes. In this longitudinal study, we examined the association between neighborhood food environment and risk of newly diagnosed ("incident") diabetes in different communities (high density urban, low density urban, suburban, and rural). We created a retrospective dynamic, national cohort of 6,082,018 diabetes free US veterans identified from the Veterans Affairs electronic health records, enrolled between 2008 and 2016, and followed through 2018. Incident diabetes was defined as: 2 clinical encounters with diabetes ICD codes, a documented prescription for diabetes medication other than metformin or acarbose alone, or 1 clinical encounter with diabetes ICD codes and 2 elevated A1C (≥6.5%). Five-year average counts of fast-food restaurants and supermarkets relative to all other food outlets were used to generate two census tract-level neighborhood measures. We examined the association between food environment and incident diabetes using piecewise exponential survival models with county-level random effects. The average age of cohort participants was 59 years; the majority were non-Hispanic white (76.3%) and male (92.2%). Relative density of fast-food restaurants was associated with a modest increased risk of diabetes in all community types; adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) in high density urban, low density urban, and suburban communities were each 1.1, in rural communities was 1.2 (p < 0.05 for all). Relative density of supermarkets was associated with lower diabetes risk in suburban and rural communities only (aHR 0.7, 0.8, respectively, p <0.05). Neighborhood fast food and supermarkets influenced diabetes risk among US veterans in multiple community types, suggesting potential avenues for action to address the diabetes burden. Disclosure: R. Kanchi: None. G. Imperatore: None. B. Elbel: None. L. Thorpe: None. P. M. Lopez: None. P. E. Rummo: None. D. C. Lee: None. S. Adhikari: Research Support; Self; Johnson & Johnson. M. D. Schwartz: None. S. Avramovic: None. K. R. Siegel: None. D. B. Rolka: None. Funding: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]