Well, rates are calculated as number of events (say new cases of diabetes) over the average population during a certain period of time such as a month or a year – the average population is generally the number of people at risk at the midpoint of the above time period – therefore rates for different countries take into account the difference in populations and are comparable…therefore if a country, say France, has a lower population at risk, but a higher incidence of diabetes, their rate may be the same as ours (this is probably not true, in fact) Incidence is a measure of the number of new occurences and is a different measure from a rate – to give you specific indidence data, I’d have to look that up I believe the U.S. is above average in the total percetange of people at risk because a much higher percentage of people are consuming foods and living unhealthier lifestyles (for example maybe another country has a comparable population but in our country, mostly everyone eats fast food whereas in theirs, almost no one does)