Social determinants of health (SDoH) are major drivers of diabetes outcomes, but no concise and validated tool has existed to measure their burden in people with diabetes. A study published in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care introduced the Diabetes Index for Social Determinants of Health (DISDOH), the first diabetes-specific instrument designed for use in clinical and community settings.

Participants were recruited from the Health Extension for Diabetes (HED) program and a national crowdsourcing platform. A 16-item pool was created with input from diabetes expert stakeholders and refined through pilot testing. Principal component analysis in 440 HED participants identified a five-factor solution, which was later confirmed in a separate sample of 215 individuals. The five DISDOH domains included socioeconomic status, neighborhood and physical environment, food environment, health context, and social context. All domains showed acceptable internal consistency and strong convergent validity.

The study highlights DISDOH as a brief, practical, and reliable tool to identify social risk factors that influence diabetes self-care, supporting integration of SDoH into diabetes management and care planning.