This article describes the sociodemographic characteristics of youth and adults with diabetes in the United States, overall and by diabetes type when available, and compares their characteristics to persons without diagnosed diabetes based on national data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). In the NHIS 2021–2022, the age distribution of all persons with diagnosed diabetes was older than persons without diagnosed diabetes (mean age 61.2 years vs. 37.6 years). Adults with type 1 diabetes were younger than adults with type 2 diabetes (mean age 47.1 years vs. 62.5 years). For the race and ethnicity distribution, a higher proportion of adults with diagnosed diabetes were non-Hispanic Black persons and a lower proportion were non-Hispanic White persons compared to those without diabetes (15.7% vs. 11.4% and 57.3% vs. 64.3%, respectively). The proportion of non-Hispanic White persons was highest for adults with type 1 diabetes compared to those with type 2 diabetes and those without diabetes (75.3% vs. 56.6% and 64.3%, respectively). Among adults with diagnosed diabetes, a higher proportion of non-Hispanic White persons and a lower proportion of non-Hispanic Black persons were men (54.3% vs. 45.7% women and 42.7% vs. 57.3% women, respectively).

In the NHIS 2021–2022, the majority of adults with or without diagnosed diabetes lived in metropolitan counties (83.5% and 86.7%, respectively), but compared to those without diabetes, slightly more adults with diagnosed diabetes lived in nonmetropolitan counties (16.5% vs. 13.3%, respectively) and in the South (42.6% vs. 37.6%, respectively).

The level of attained education was lower in adults with diagnosed diabetes compared to those without diabetes (21.2% vs. 38.4% graduated with bachelor’s degree or higher), and this difference persisted when stratified by age group. Hispanic persons with diagnosed diabetes had the highest prevalence of having less than a high school education compared to persons with diabetes of all other race/ethnicity groups (40.5% vs. 10.4%–19.4%). Compared to adults without diabetes, persons with diagnosed diabetes were more often: living below the poverty threshold (poverty income ratio <1.00: 13.1% vs. 9.3%), food insecure (11.0% vs. 6.5%), receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (food stamps; 18.6% vs. 12.2%), and receiving rental assistance (20.5% vs. 8.5%); these differences persisted when stratified by age group. Among adults that reported not working in the past week, those with diagnosed diabetes more often reported being disabled as the main reason for not working compared to persons without diabetes (25.2% vs. 14.3%), and this difference persisted regardless of age.

National data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) 2015–March 2020 were used to compare characteristics among adults with diagnosed diabetes, undiagnosed diabetes, prediabetes, and no diabetes and among youth with diagnosed diabetes, prediabetes, and no diabetes. Adults with prediabetes were younger (37.6% age 20–44 years) than those with undiagnosed diabetes or diagnosed diabetes (21.6% and 12.7% age 20–44 years, respectively), but the distributions of sex and race/ethnicity were similar for these diabetes status groups. Among youth with prediabetes, there were more males than females, and the majority were non-Hispanic White persons (52.0%), followed by Hispanic persons (27.2%).