Landmark study highlights growing pediatric IBD rates across the U.S.

A groundbreaking study published today in Gastroenterology provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) prevalence in the United States. Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the research, led by investigators from the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Pennsylvania, estimates that more than 100,000 American youth under the age of 20 live with IBD. The study illustrates that the prevalence of pediatric IBD in the U.

S. continues to increase and is among the highest worldwide. This landmark study analyzed data from two commercial insurance claims datasets (Optum's Clinformatics ® Data Mart database and Carelon Research's Healthcare Integrated Research Database) and Medicaid data from five states (Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and California), providing a nationally representative picture of physician-diagnosed pediatric IBD across the country.

The researchers utilized a validated combination of medical diagnoses and prescription medications to identify IBD cases, and calculated age-, sex-, and race-specific estimates of IBD prevalence. These estimates were then standardized to the 2020 United States Census to generate national prevalence estimates. The study found an increase of about 22% for Crohn's disease and 29% for ulcerative colitis in the pediatric population compared to 2009 prevalence data.

Our findings reveal that pediat.