Arthritis statistics

Arthritis is a wide-spread problem throughout the world, with many people experiencing some form of the disease. With over 200 forms of arthritis officially recognized, it's important to know all that you can about the disease. To that end, we've created this article to give you a better idea of the hard numbers behind arthritic conditions.

- The Center of Disease Control in the United States has reported that arthritic conditions are the leading reason behind disability. A research study conducted by the institute found that every year in the United States, 9,500 people die as a result of arthritis. In addition, 750,000 people are expected to be hospitalized per year, and 8 million people will suffer some physical limitations due to the disease.

The scope of the problem is quite wide-spread, with the study also showing that 49 million people in America have been clinically diagnosed with some form of arthritis and a whopping 86 billion dollars being spent to curb issues with arthritis.

- Rheumatoid arthritis, which is one of the most harmful forms of the disease, affects roughly 3 million Americans. Coincidentally, rheumatoid arthritis has been found to be present in women two to three times as often as it is diagnosed in men. The average onset age for this disease has been determined to be between ages 30 and 50. Lupus, another form of arthritis, tends to be found in women most often, with a full 9 out of 10 lupus diagnoses occurring in women. In addition, lupus is as much as three times as likely to strike a woman with African American decent as opposed to Caucasian women. Women also face a higher risk of developing fibromyalgia than their male counterparts, with a chance of getting the disease that is about 7 times as likely.

- Women also faced an increased risk of getting ANY type of arthritis. According to a study conducted in Wisconsin, approximately 30 percent of all women have arthritis, as opposed to 23 percent of all men.

- Those that are obese may face a significantly higher risk of developing arthritis. Approximately 40 percent of all arthritic patients are obese.

- One study places the risk of getting arthritis for the average person in the United States to be about 13.60%. This means that approximately 1 in 7 people in the United States will be diagnosed with arthritis at some point in their lives.

While these statistics may provide some information about how prevalent arthritis is in our society, it's important to closely examine the sources for the studies. The data that was used in this article comes as a result of studies conducted by the Center of Disease Control, the state of Wisconsin, and the National Center for Health Statistics. When viewing the statistics, it's important to consider how the testing process may weigh into the results. Always be sure to take any statistics with a grain of salt, as they may have some margin of error that may skew the results.