IBD Evidence

Evidence map

Inflammatory bowel disease epidemiology: what the evidence base looks like

10 publications, 2 of them trials and 6 syntheses. This page describes the shape of that literature rather than summarising its conclusions.

Updated 4 min read 10 citations

Shopfront of a German pharmacy seen from the street
muckelfloh · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the evidence on inflammatory bowel disease epidemiology is made of Of 10 publications on this topic, the breakdown by study type: 6 meta-analysis, 2 randomised trial, 1 review, 1 other. 6211meta-analysis (6)randomised trial (2)review (1)other (1)
10 publications, by study type. Volume is not strength — the same count can be a settled question or a pile of commentary, and which one it is depends almost entirely on this breakdown. Harvested from PubMed and Crossref; publication type as recorded by the source.

What this literature is made of

The synthesis is ahead of the primary literature here — reviews and meta-analyses drawing on a modest number of underlying studies. Treat confident conclusions with the caution the sample size deserves.

The distinction that matters most is between synthesis and primary research. A meta-analysis pools trials and is the closest thing to a settled answer a field produces. A narrative review is one group's reading of the same material and can be selective without being dishonest. Counting them together, which most citation counts do, obscures exactly the thing you want to know.

When the inflammatory bowel disease epidemiology literature was published Publication years for the 10 papers on this topic, grouped into bands from before 2015 through to 2023 onwards. 2023 onwards7 papers2015-20192 papers2020-20221 papers
Still active. The most recent paper here is from 2025, so this is a field where an answer written today may not hold for long. Publication years as recorded by PubMed and Crossref.

How this page is built

Everything above is computed from the citations this site harvested from PubMed and Crossref, not written by hand. When the weekly harvest finds a new paper on this topic, these counts change and the characterisation changes with them. That is the point: a hand-written claim about how strong an evidence base is starts decaying the day it is written.

Publication type is taken as the source records it. That is imperfect — journals label inconsistently, and a paper indexed as a "review" may be a systematic one — so treat the bands as approximate. They are accurate enough to distinguish a trial literature from a commentary literature, which is the distinction that matters.

Projecting metal pharmacy sign mounted on a building wall in Konstanz
The red gothic A is the standard pharmacy mark across German-speaking countries. JoachimKohler-HB · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The strongest work on this topic

Ordered by study design first, then recency. The full set is listed in the references below.

  1. Management of paediatric ulcerative colitis, part 2: Acute severe colitis-An updated evidence-based consensus guideline from the European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and the European Crohn's and Colitis Organization — Assa A, Aloi M, Van Biervliet S et al., 2025, clinical guideline
  2. Management of paediatric ulcerative colitis, part 1: Ambulatory care-An updated evidence-based consensus guideline from the European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and the European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation — Wine E, Aloi M, Van Biervliet S et al., 2025, clinical guideline
  3. Acute severe ulcerative colitis trials: the past, the present and the future — Honap S, Jairath V, Sands BE et al., 2024, systematic review
  4. Global Hospitalization Trends for Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis in the 21st Century: A Systematic Review With Temporal Analyses — Buie MJ, Quan J, Windsor JW et al., 2023, meta-analysis
  5. Twenty-first Century Trends in the Global Epidemiology of Pediatric-Onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Systematic Review — Kuenzig ME, Fung SG, Marderfeld L et al., 2022, systematic review
  6. Worldwide incidence and prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease in the 21st century: a systematic review of population-based studies32448-0) — Ng SC, Shi HY, Hamidi N et al., 2017, systematic review
  7. Efficacy and safety of mirikizumab in patients with moderately-to-severely active Crohn's disease: a phase 3, multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled and active-controlled, treat-through study01762-8) — Ferrante M, D'Haens G, Jairath V et al., 2024, randomised controlled trial
  8. Vedolizumab versus Adalimumab for Moderate-to-Severe Ulcerative Colitis — Sands BE, Peyrin-Biroulet L, Loftus EV Jr et al., 2019, randomised controlled trial
  9. Epidemiology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease across the Ages in the Era of Advanced Therapies — Caron B, Honap S, Peyrin-Biroulet L, 2024, review
  10. Global evolution of inflammatory bowel disease across epidemiologic stages — Hracs L, Windsor JW, Gorospe J et al., 2025, journal article
How much research is there on inflammatory bowel disease epidemiology?
10 publications are indexed here, of which 2 are trials and 6 are syntheses.
Does more research mean a stronger conclusion?
No. Composition matters more than volume — five randomised trials support a claim far better than fifty commentaries, and citation counts do not distinguish between them.
How current is this?
The most recent paper indexed here is from 2025. The set is refreshed weekly from PubMed and Crossref.
Why does this page not tell me the answer?
Because summarising a literature into a conclusion requires reading it, and doing that automatically is how confident nonsense gets published. This page tells you how much weight a conclusion could bear; the articles on this site do the interpreting.

References

Every citation below links to the original peer-reviewed record on PubMed or via DOI. Nothing here is a substitute for medical advice.

  1. Management of paediatric ulcerative colitis, part 2: Acute severe colitis-An updated evidence-based consensus guideline from the European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and the European Crohn's and Colitis Organization Assa A, Aloi M, Van Biervliet S, et al. · Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition · 2025 · Clinical guideline DOIPubMed 40528309
  2. Management of paediatric ulcerative colitis, part 1: Ambulatory care-An updated evidence-based consensus guideline from the European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and the European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation Wine E, Aloi M, Van Biervliet S, et al. · Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition · 2025 · Clinical guideline DOIPubMed 40677018Full text
  3. Acute severe ulcerative colitis trials: the past, the present and the future Honap S, Jairath V, Sands BE, et al. · Gut · 2024 · Systematic review DOIPubMed 38834296Full text
  4. Global Hospitalization Trends for Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis in the 21st Century: A Systematic Review With Temporal Analyses Buie MJ, Quan J, Windsor JW, et al. · Clinical gastroenterology and hepatology : the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association · 2023 · Meta-analysis DOIPubMed 35863682
  5. Twenty-first Century Trends in the Global Epidemiology of Pediatric-Onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Systematic Review Kuenzig ME, Fung SG, Marderfeld L, et al. · Gastroenterology · 2022 · Systematic review DOIPubMed 34995526
  6. Worldwide incidence and prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease in the 21st century: a systematic review of population-based studies Ng SC, Shi HY, Hamidi N, et al. · Lancet (London, England) · 2017 · Systematic review DOIPubMed 29050646
  7. Efficacy and safety of mirikizumab in patients with moderately-to-severely active Crohn's disease: a phase 3, multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled and active-controlled, treat-through study Ferrante M, D'Haens G, Jairath V, et al. · Lancet (London, England) · 2024 · Randomised controlled trial DOIPubMed 39581202
  8. Vedolizumab versus Adalimumab for Moderate-to-Severe Ulcerative Colitis Sands BE, Peyrin-Biroulet L, Loftus EV Jr, et al. · The New England journal of medicine · 2019 · Randomised controlled trial DOIPubMed 31553834
  9. Epidemiology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease across the Ages in the Era of Advanced Therapies Caron B, Honap S, Peyrin-Biroulet L · Journal of Crohn's & colitis · 2024 · Review DOIPubMed 39475082Full text
  10. Global evolution of inflammatory bowel disease across epidemiologic stages Hracs L, Windsor JW, Gorospe J, et al. · Nature · 2025 · Journal article DOIPubMed 40307548Full text