title: Prevalence trends for three common medical conditions: treated and untreated.
abstract: Studies that use the number of individuals treated for a medical condition to investigate its prevalence understate true prevalence and obscure prevalence trends. For example, treated diabetes prevalence was less than half of true prevalence in 1999-2000. Over the ensuing twelve years, the rate of increase in treated prevalence was more than 50 percent higher than that of true prevalence.
authors.affiliation: Charles Roehrig (charles.roehrig@altarum.org) is vice president and director of the Center for Sustainable Health Spending at the Altarum Institute, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Roehrig
authors.affiliation: Matthew Daly is a senior analyst in the Center for Sustainable Health Spending at the Altarum Institute.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Daly
mesh_terms: D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology*; D017048:Health Care Costs; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006801:Humans; D006949:Hyperlipidemias / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Chronic Care; Cost of Health Care; Health Economics; Health Spending; Medicine/Clinical Issues