Burden of and Trends in Urticaria Globally, Regionally, and Nationally from 1990 to 2019: Systematic Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Urticaria presents a significant global health challenge due to its sudden onset and potential for severe allergic reactions. Past data on worldwide prevalence and incidence is inconsistent due to differing study methodologies, regional differences, and evolving diagnostic criteria. Past studies have often provided broad ranges instead of specific figures, underscoring the necessity for a cohesive global perspective to inform public health strategies. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the global burden of urticaria using the 2019 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study data and systematically analyze urticaria prevalence, incidence, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) at global, regional, and national levels, thereby informing more effective prevention and treatment strategies. METHODS: We analyzed the global, regional, and national burden of urticaria from 1990 to 2019 using the 2019 GBD study coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Estimations of urticaria prevalence, incidence, and DALYs were derived using DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool. The Socio-demographic Index (SDI) was used to correlate development status with health outcomes. The GBD's division of the world into 21 regions and 204 countries and territories facilitated a comprehensive assessment. Age-standardized estimated annual percentage changes were generated for urticaria metrics to quantify temporal trends, with age standardization adjusting for potential confounding from age structure. RESULTS: From 1990 to 2019, the global age-standardized prevalence, incidence, and DALY rates of urticaria showed marginal changes. In 2019, 65.14 million individuals were affected, with a prevalence rate of 841.88 per 100,000 population. The DALY rate was 50.39 per 100,000 population. Compared to 1990, the global age-standardized prevalence, incidence, and DALY rates saw increases of 2.92, 4.84, and 0.31 per 100,000 population, respectively. Women persistently had higher rates than men. At a regional level in 2019, low-middle SDI regions exhibited the highest age-standardized metrics, whereas high SDI regions reported the lowest. Central Europe showed the highest rates, contrasting with Western Europe's lowest rates. Nationally, urticaria prevalence in 2019 varied dramatically, from a low of 27.1 per 100,000 population in Portugal to a high of 92.0 per 100,000 population in Nepal. India reported the most DALYs at 749,495.9, followed by China, Pakistan, and the United States. Agewise data showed higher rates in younger age groups, which diminished with age and then experienced a slight resurgence in the oldest populations. This pattern was pronounced in women and younger populations, with the largest rises seen in those aged less than 40 years and the smallest in those aged more than 70 years. CONCLUSIONS: Urticaria remains a significant global health issue, with considerable variation across regions, countries, and territories. The increased burden among women, the rising burden in younger populations, and the regional differences in disease burden call for tailored interventions and policies to tackle this emerging public health issue.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".