Abstract
BACKGROUND/ INTRODUCTION: Regional shelter-in-place (SiP) mandates had a substantial impact on physical health and access to care. The impact of SiP on chronic disease management, specifically diabetes mellitus, is unknown. We sought to quantify the impact of California's 2020 SiP order on various health parameters in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) diabetic population. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study included 168,621 diabetic patients, stratified by pre-pandemic HbA1c level. Our primary outcome was the difference in HbA1c, systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) comparing the pre- (September 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020) to post-SiP period (June 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020). Our secondary endpoints included use of insulin or oral hypoglycemic agents (OHAs) during the post-SiP period and change in body mass index (BMI). This study utilized a paired t-test and chi-squared testing in order to assess for statistically significant differences in pre- versus post-SiP values. RESULTS: Patients in this cohort were 52.29% male with 37.68% White, 22.35% Hispanic, 9.30% Black and 23.54% Asian and a mean age of 63 years. In this cohort, 44.02% of patients had a HbA1c < 7%, while 29.17%, 13.67%, 6.34% and 6.81% had an HbA1c of 7-7.9%, 8-8.9%, 9-9.9% and ≥ 10%, respectively (range 4.10 to 19.50%). Mean HbA1c, SBP, and DBP increased significantly across all groups; OHA use and insulin utilization also increased overall. Patients with lower pre-SiP HbA1c demonstrated larger increases in HbA1c and OHA utilization, while patients with higher pre-SiP HbA1c demonstrated increased rates of insulin initiation and decreases in their post-SiP HbA1c. Notably, mean BMI decreased in every HbA1c subgroup. Due to the large sample size, all p-values were < 0.0001. CONCLUSIONS: Among the KPNC diabetic population, several metrics for diabetes health management were significantly worsened after California's SiP. However, diabetic patients with the highest HbA1c values showed clinically significant improvement in their HbA1c, indicating a differential effect of the SiP on diabetes management. Our study helps identify higher-risk diabetic patients who require more intensive monitoring in the setting of the recent pandemic and highlights the importance of considering long-term implications of policy decisions on diabetes care.