Diabetes and prediabetes risk
Indian Diabetes Risk Score (IDRS)
A four-question score built in India to spot adults who may have type 2 diabetes without knowing it. You get your score out of 100, whether it falls in the low, moderate or high group, and the points behind it.
Your answers
Based on the Indian Diabetes Risk Score, in our own words. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
Measure around your middle, just above the hip bones, after breathing out.
What you will see
Your Indian Diabetes Risk Score out of 100, its risk group and the points behind it.
Educational only, not medical advice. A risk score, not a diagnosis.
Source
Mohan V et al., Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2005 (development, score out of 100 and the cut-off of 60). Points and risk groups as printed by the developers' group in Table I of Deepa M et al., Indian Journal of Medical Research 2023 (open access).
Validated in
Built in 2,350 adults aged 20 and over from the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study in south India, all given a glucose tolerance test, and checked in the same data. A national survey later tested it in 113,043 adults aged 20 and over from urban and rural areas of 30 Indian states and union territories.
Limits
The score looks for type 2 diabetes you may already have; it does not diagnose and does not predict future diabetes. It was built and tested in India, so it may fit people of Indian background living elsewhere, or other groups, less well. The activity question is self-rated. It was first checked only in the data it was built from. People already diagnosed with diabetes should not use it.
IDRS, the US test, FINDRISC or the Leicester score?
All of these ask about age, waist or weight and family history, but they were built in different places. The Indian Diabetes Risk Score was made in Chennai, India, and uses only four questions with no weight or BMI (Mohan 2005). The UK Leicester diabetes risk score was built in a multi-ethnic group with many South Asian adults (Gray 2010). The FINDRISC calculator comes from Finland and predicts diabetes over 10 years (Lindström 2003), and the US type 2 diabetes risk test was built in US survey data (Bang 2009). Pick the one built closest to where you live and who you are.
The points
| Factor | Answer | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Age | Under 35 / 35 to 49 / 50 or more | 0 / 20 / 30 |
| Waist, women | Under 80 cm / 80 to 89 / 90 or more | 0 / 10 / 20 |
| Waist, men | Under 90 cm / 90 to 99 / 100 or more | 0 / 10 / 20 |
| Physical activity | Vigorous / moderate / mild / none and mostly sitting | 0 / 10 / 20 / 30 |
| Parents with diabetes | Neither / one / both | 0 / 10 / 20 |
Points from Table I of Deepa et al., who print the developers' scoring (Deepa 2023). The developers turned the weights from their statistical model into points with a maximum of 100 (Mohan 2005). Activity covers regular exercise and physical work at home or on the job. We count a woman's waist of 89.5 cm as the 80 to 89 band. One inch is 2.54 cm.
Example: a 45-year-old woman with a waist of 85 cm, light activity and one parent with diabetes scores 20 (age) + 10 (waist) + 20 (activity) + 10 (family) = 60, the high-risk group.
What the score means
The groups are under 30 (low), 30 to 50 (moderate) and 60 or more (high) (Deepa 2023). In the Chennai study, a score of 60 or more picked up 72.5% of people who had diabetes without knowing it, and 60.1% of people without diabetes scored under 60. Only 17% of people scoring 60 or more turned out to have diabetes, while 95.1% of those under 60 did not (Mohan 2005). So the score catches most cases but also flags many people whose blood sugar is normal, which is the point of a first-step screen.
In the national survey of 113,043 adults, 60.2% of people newly found to have diabetes scored 60 or more, 35.9% scored 30 to 50 and 3.9% scored under 30. The score told people with and without diabetes apart with an area under the curve of about 0.70 in both urban and rural areas (Deepa 2023).
What to do with your result
A score of 60 or more is a reason to ask your doctor about a blood sugar test such as an A1C, a fasting glucose or a glucose tolerance test. In the US, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes in adults aged 35 to 70 who have overweight or obesity (USPSTF 2021), whatever any risk score says.
See also the Chinese Diabetes Risk Score, the Korean diabetes risk score, the Leicester diabetes risk score, the FINDRISC calculator, the CANRISK calculator, the AUSDRISK calculator, the type 2 diabetes risk test, when to get tested for diabetes, prediabetes ranges and next steps and the waist circumference check.
Sources
- Mohan V, Deepa R, Deepa M, Somannavar S, Datta M. A simplified Indian Diabetes Risk Score for screening for undiagnosed diabetic subjects. J Assoc Physicians India. 2005;53:759-763. PMID 16334618. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16334618/
- Deepa M, Nirmal E, Ulagamathesan V, et al., ICMR-INDIAB Collaborative Study Group. Evaluation of Madras Diabetes Research Foundation-Indian Diabetes Risk Score in detecting undiagnosed diabetes in the Indian population: results from the ICMR-INDIAB population-based study (INDIAB-15). Indian J Med Res. 2023;157(4):239-249. doi:10.4103/ijmr.ijmr_2615_21. PMID 37282387. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10438401/
- US Preventive Services Task Force. Screening for Prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes: Recommendation Statement. JAMA. 2021;326(8):736-743. www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/screening-for-prediabetes-and-type-2-diabetes
- Lindström J, Tuomilehto J. The diabetes risk score: a practical tool to predict type 2 diabetes risk. Diabetes Care. 2003;26(3):725-731. PMID 12610029. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12610029/
- Gray LJ, Taub NA, Khunti K, Gardiner E, Hiles S, Webb DR, Srinivasan BT, Davies MJ. The Leicester Risk Assessment score for detecting undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes and impaired glucose regulation for use in a multiethnic UK setting. Diabet Med. 2010;27(8):887-895. PMID 20653746. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20653746/
- Bang H, Edwards AM, Bomback AS, et al. Development and validation of a patient self-assessment score for diabetes risk. Ann Intern Med. 2009;151(11):775-783. doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-151-11-200912010-00005
Written and maintained by the uncovermyrisk.com editorial team. We do not have a medical reviewer; every claim links to its primary source above. Last reviewed: 2026-11-01. Spotted an error? See About.