Abstract
Diabetes mellitus is a major public health challenge in Saudi Arabia. Understanding regional variation in diabetes clinic utilisation and its relationship to health resource availability is essential for equitable planning under Vision 2030. This cross-sectional study analysed 2024 Ministry of Health diabetes clinic visits, obtained via the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) Open Data Platform, across all 13 administrative regions. Visit counts were aggregated by region, nationality and sex. Population-adjusted visit rates per 1,000 with exact Poisson 95% confidence intervals were derived using 2024 General Authority for Statistics estimates. Pearson and Spearman correlations, with Shapiro– Wilk assumption checks and bootstrap 95% confidence intervals, assessed associations between five resource indicators (hospitals per million; beds, physicians and nurses per 10,000; dedicated diabetes/endocrine centres per million) and visit rates. Overall, 620,742 visits were recorded; Saudis accounted for 94.0% and females 53.9%. Regional rates ranged from 7.6 to 68.7 per 1,000 (coefficient of variation: 64.0%). Al Baha, Asir and Northern Borders had the highest rates; Riyadh and Eastern the lowest. Visit rates were positively correlated with hospitals per million (r = 0.733, p = 0.004), beds per 10,000 (r = 0.640, p = 0.018) and physicians per 10,000 (r = 0.561, p = 0.046) and strongly rankcorrelated with diabetes/endocrine centres per million (Spearman ρ = 0.868, p < 0.001). Substantial regional disparities in diabetes clinic utilisation exist and are strongly associated with the spatial availability of physician-led and specialty-focused services, supporting equity-oriented planning under Vision 2030.
Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, Healthcare Utilization, Health Resources, Regional Disparities, Saudi Arabia.