IBD "Cluster" ??

I work in a workplace of 250 people, mostly men. Just curious, out of 250 people, what would you consider an unusually high number of people with IBD? We have a bunch.

Well, certain kinds of workplaces may attract (or more successfully retain) people with IBD, but generally the prevalence in the USA is estimated at about 400 per 100,000.

www.cdc.gov/ibd/ibd-epidemiology.htm

This means that if you sampled 250 people you would only expect 1 IBD patient if there was no "cluster" or special risk. BUT, just by chance it can be higher. So the question is really how unlikely is a value of 5 or 10, or ??

15 would be extremely unlikely. Maybe upto 6 would not be that unlikely.

In all 5-6 times I stayed on the gastroenterolgy ward of my local hospital I only met one other person there besides myself with IBD - oddly enough she was exactly the same age as me and had Crohn's too.

You'd think a GI ward would be where you would meet a few people with IBD.

I work with one other person with UC and have had 2 students with CD recently. I am a classical musician/college professor and 3 of the 4 of us are women, all Caucasian. We range in age from 19-75. One of my students with CD also has mono and missed the entire last semester. I also recently learned that another musician I have only played with a few times had UC but has had a jpouch for 12+ years now.

lol, I always thought that it would have been convenient if I were a plumber. I'd be near toilets often and I'd be able to fix any clogs I caused. Porta potty delivery person would have been convenient too. I could always hop in and go when necessary. :)

I would think out of 250, one or two might be normal. What type of job is it? Desk? is it in an environment that is noteworthy? I grew up in a small town and I never met or heard of IBD until I developed it in my mid20s. Not to say I never encountered anyone with it, but none of my friends or family members (and I have a big family), ever told me about it. I think 6-7 is a lot.

In Canada the rate of IBD is 1 in 150 so more than 3 or 4 would be highish, but maybe not statistically so

In a workplace of around 40 people at one point 3 of us had UC and one had a close relation with UC. We are all of a genetic background prone to UC (me Ashkenazy second generation born in Western Europe, them South Asian first generation born in Europe). Oh, and just remembered, someone else with a sibling with UC, Brit without "foreign" blood in recent generations....and my partner has two close acquaintances with IBD and several workmates (very large company, quite a lot of Asian staff). Seems like incidence of IBD grows and grows whatever the genetic background....

I remember a thread from last year where the OP believed that the incidence of IBD was increasing. It was his anecdotal observation that in recent years men in public restrooms were more often than not using the toilet stalls as opposed to the urinals.

Here is a sign found at more and more public swimming pools. When I was growing up we didn't need to concern ourselves with this kind of problem:

VIEW IMAGE
”Do not use the pool if you are ill with diarrhea”

notsosickly said...
What type of job is it? Desk? is it in an environment that is noteworthy?

I'm a firefighter so it is possible that it's noteworthy. We are exposed to a lot of nasty stuff both through products of combustion and as medical first-responders. At the same time, we live the 'western lifestyle' to the extreme...huge meals and lots of unhealthy eating, high stress, interrupted sleep patterns, etc. We are at a higher risk for certain types of cancers (I don't believe colon cancer is one of them), so it is possible that we have a higher risk of IBD, I guess. Really no way to know at this point. I've thought about reaching out to other departments to see if they also have high incidences of IBD. Could just be that we are an anomaly.

Most web statistics on IBD are quite frankly wrong. In most cases they are based on studies from 1980s-1990s and few sites seem to have updated for the new studies that have emerged particularly from European and Australian studies.

For the most parts the web quotes incidence rates of diseases but note this is **NOT** the prevalence rate which I think is what the first poster is getting at.

"Incidence in epidemiology is a measure of the probability of occurrence of a given medical condition in a population within a specified period of time". Incidence should not be confused with prevalence, which is the proportion of cases in the population at a given time rather than rate of occurrence of new cases. Thus, incidence conveys information about the risk of contracting the disease, whereas prevalence indicates how widespread the disease is. Prevalence is the proportion of the total number of cases to the total population and is more a measure of the burden of the disease on society with no regard to time at risk or when subjects may have been exposed to a possible risk factor. Prevalence can also be measured with respect to a specific subgroup of a population (see: denominator data). Incidence is usually more useful than prevalence in understanding the disease etiology: for example, if the incidence rate of a disease in a population increases, then there is a risk factor that promotes the incidence. But prevalence gives a much more better summary of how widespread the disease is.

Think of it this way. A study may estimate for you the incidence of red cars produced in America over 2010-2015. But that won't tell you the prevalence of red cars been driven in America throughout 2016.

Web-sites seem to quote incidents rates much more than prevalence rates. 1 in 250 and 1 in 150 quoted above sound like low incidence rates to me. I've seen prevalence rates close to then 400 in 10,000 figure. I think the prevalence of UCC in a homogenous population is most certainly greater than 1 in 100.

Post Edited (damo123) : 5/31/2016 5:25:43 AM (GMT-6)

damo123 said...
Most web statistics on IBD are quite frankly wrong. In most cases they are based on studies from 1980s-1990s and few sites seem to have updated for the new studies that have emerged particularly from European and Australian studies.

For the most parts the web quotes incidence rates of diseases but note this is **NOT** the prevalence rate which I think is what the first poster is getting at.

"Incidence in epidemiology is a measure of the probability of occurrence of a given medical condition in a population within a specified period of time". Incidence should not be confused with prevalence, which is the proportion of cases in the population at a given time rather than rate of occurrence of new cases. Thus, incidence conveys information about the risk of contracting the disease, whereas prevalence indicates how widespread the disease is. Prevalence is the proportion of the total number of cases to the total population and is more a measure of the burden of the disease on society with no regard to time at risk or when subjects may have been exposed to a possible risk factor. Prevalence can also be measured with respect to a specific subgroup of a population (see: denominator data). Incidence is usually more useful than prevalence in understanding the disease etiology: for example, if the incidence rate of a disease in a population increases, then there is a risk factor that promotes the incidence. But prevalence gives a much more better summary of how widespread the disease is.

Think of it this way. A study may estimate for you the incidence of red cars produced in America over 2010-2015. But that won't tell you the prevalence of red cars been driven in America throughout 2016.

Web-sites seem to quote incidents rates much more than prevalence rates. 1 in 250 and 1 in 150 quoted above sound like low incidence rates to me. I've seen prevalence rates close to then 400 in 10,000 figure. I think the prevalence of UCC in a homogenous population is most certainly greater than 1 in 100.

Ive taken 6 undergrad and med school epidemiology courses so Im well versed on the difference between prevalence and incidence, but that was an excellent summary. According to the CCFC the PREVALENCE in Canada in 1 in 150. See here: http://www.crohnsandcolitis.ca/atf/cf/%7B403f6026-70ba-417c-a39b-7fbf23d5d690%7D/FACES-OF-INFLAMMATORY-BOWEL-DISEASE.JPG

It is absolutely a prevalence rate. The wording is exactly prevalence... They arent going to say "the prevalence rate of IBD is ___" because lay people dont know the terminology, but what they said was without question prevalence.

And 1 in 150 is a HUGE prevalence rate. Similar to diseases like T1D and other common AI diseases

Also, it is peer reviewed literature. Here is the source material: http://www.isupportibd.ca/pdf/ccfc-ibd-impact-report-2012.pdf