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A new study has been released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on this subject. The work was done by the National Arthritis Data Workgroup (NADW).
The NADW is a combined group of experts in gathering statistics from a national database. They used research published by others to estimate the number of people affected by arthritis in the year 2005.
They did indeed find that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is on the decline. This is a general trend and may not reflect future numbers. It is based on the fact that there were 1.3 cases of RA reported in 2005. This was compared with the 2.1 million adults with RA reported in 1990.
Reasons for this change are only speculative. First, fewer people are diagnosed with RA because of changes made in the diagnostic classification of the disease. In layman's terms, this means that the diagnosis is made differently now. Patients diagnosed today with something other than RA might have been placed in an RA category according to guidelines used 10 years ago.
There may be other reasons for the apparent decline in RA. These remain unknown at this time. Further study and research to identify trends and causes will continue through the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
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