Commentary on the Epidemiology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Compounding Prevalence Nations: Toward Sustaining Healthcare Delivery
Michelle Herauf, Stephanie Coward, Juan Nicolás Peña-Sánchez, Çharles N. Bernstein, Eric I. Benchimol, Gilaad G. Kaplan, Alain Bitton, Angela Forbes, Catherine Rowan, Charlie W. Lees, Cynthia H. Seow, Dan Turner, Eduard Brunet-Mas, Edward V. Loftus, Harminder Singh, Joëlle St-Pierre, Johan Burisch, Joseph W. Windsor, Kenneth Ernest-Suarez, Laura E. Targownik, Lindsay Hracs, Meaghan Martin, Peter L. Lakatos, Remo Panaccione, Richard B. Gearry, Sanjay K. Murthy, Siew C. Ng, Wael El-Matary
Abstract
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), namely Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects millions of individuals worldwide.1 IBD is characterized geographically by epidemiologic stages: Stage 1 (emergence) includes developing regions with low incidence and prevalence; stage 2 (acceleration in incidence) includes newly industrialized regions in Asia and Latin America with rapidly rising incidence but low prevalence; and stage 3 (compounding prevalence) includes early industrialized regions in North America, Europe, and Oceania with steadily climbing prevalence due to the cumulative effect of incidence greatly exceeding mortality over time.