title: Global trends in the incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents: a systematic review and evaluation of methodological approaches.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to systematically review what has been reported on the incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents, to scrutinise the methodological issues observed in the included studies and to prepare recommendations for future research and surveillances.
  
  
  METHODS
  PubMed, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Scopus, EMBASE and Web of Science were searched from inception to February 2013. Population-based studies on incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents were summarised and methodologically evaluated. Owing to substantial methodological heterogeneity and considerable differences in study populations a quantitative meta-analysis was not performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among 145 potentially relevant studies, 37 population-based studies met the inclusion criteria. Variations in the incidence and prevalence rates of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents were mainly related to age of the study population, calendar time, geographical regions and ethnicity, resulting in a range of 0-330 per 100,000 person-years for incidence rates, and 0-5,300 per 100,000 population for prevalence rates. Furthermore, a substantial variation in the methodological characteristics was observed for response rates (60-96%), ascertainment rates (53-99%), diagnostic tests and criteria used to diagnose type 2 diabetes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Worldwide incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents vary substantially among countries, age categories and ethnic groups and this can be explained by variations in population characteristics and methodological dissimilarities between studies.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology, Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80082, 3508 TB, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fazeli Farsani
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: van der Aa
authors.forename: M M J
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: van der Vorst
authors.forename: C A J
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Knibbe
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Boer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D015995:Prevalence