A Geographical Exploration of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Date
2013-01-25
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Abstract
A chronic disease that afflicts 200 000 Canadians of all ages, inflammatory bowel disease has no known cure or aetiology. Using socioeconomic Census variables, population-level models of inflammatory bowel diseases – Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis – were made for two large cities in Alberta as well as for the entire province. For modelling, a rule was made to link the imperfectly overlapping dissemination areas (a census unit in which patient data were provided in) and municipal boundaries that were used in provincial-wide analysis. The models assessed statistical relationships between inflammatory bowel disease and socioeconomic population-level characteristics. Factors found to be positively correlated with inflammatory bowel disease were the presence of
older buildings (1970 and older), low socioeconomic status in the form of less than high school education and proportion of one parent families, and certain occupational work- forces: waste management, accommodation and tourism, and construction work-forces. Conversely, negatively correlated factors consisted of the presence of newer buildings (1990 and newer), apartment buildings, and the proportion of people working in the mining and oil industry. These findings indicate the need to consider the potential links between inflammatory bowel disease and three factors: occupational exposures, socioeconomic status, and environmental exposures in different building types and age of buildings.
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Geography
Citation
Underwood, F. (2013). A Geographical Exploration of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/24744