1193-P: “TechQuity” in Diabetes: Does Digital Health Technology Improve Equity?

Introduction: Higher diabetes mellitus (DM) burden and disparities in healthcare have been linked to factors including race/ethnicity, low socioeconomic status (SES), and geographic location. Objective: To identify digital health interventions (DHIs) that improve health and healthcare delivery outcomes in populations disproportionately affected by DM. Methods: A systematic scoping review evaluated DHIs to address global health disparities in cardiovascular (CV)-related diseases/disorders or cardiovascular disease (CVD). A subgroup analysis was performed to identify the impact of DHIs in DM populations. Pre-post DM-specific health (clinical/intermediate and patient-reported) and healthcare delivery outcomes (quality, utilization, and access to care including DHI technical evaluations) were abstracted. Results: In the subgroup analysis, 21 of the 58 included studies (out of 4,298 relevant citations) examined DM populations. DM-specific health data were obtained from 13 of those studies examining primary (e.g., weight loss), secondary (e.g., diabetic retinopathy screening), tertiary (e.g., glucose control), or quaternary (e.g., overmedicalization) preventive DHIs. DHIs primarily targeted Black (29%), Hispanic (24%), low SES (62%), and/or rural (52%) populations in the United States (52%). DHIs commonly used electronic health records (28%) and decision support systems (19%). Eleven (85%) studies showed DHIs significantly improved outcomes, nine (70%) studies had no effect, and seven (54%) studies negatively impacted disparity populations. Eight (62%) studies were high-quality (e.g., RCTs). No trends could be identified to find associations of DHI type nor disparity group with preventive intervention success. Conclusions: Preventive DHIs improved both health and healthcare delivery outcomes in DM-specific disparities identified in racial/ethnic groups and low SES populations in both rural and urban geographies globally. Disclosure K. Craig: Other Relationship; Self; Medtronic. K.B. Rhee: Employee; Self; IBM.