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Food allergies documented in 4% of US population
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Food allergy or intolerance was documented among 3.6% of the United States population — approximately one in 25 people — with highest prevalence among women and those of Asian descent, according to a study published in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology.
“Current electronic health record, or EHR, systems in the United States contain an ‘allergy’ module in which health care providers document a patient’s adverse reactions to medications, foods or environmental substances, including reactions reported by the patient or observed clinically,” Warren W. Acker, MS, from the division of general medicine and primary care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. “This module must include food allergies to ensure patient safety, especially for hospitalized patients.”
To determine the frequency with which food allergies and intolerances were documented within the EHR module, the researchers collected data from the system of a larger health care organization, which were obtained between 2000 and 2013. They then observed the prevalence of food allergies with a focus on sex, racial and ethnic groups, and allergen groups. The prevalence of reactions that could have been IgE mediated and anaphylactic were also observed.
For patients with a reported peanut allergy, radioallergosorbent testing and ImmunoCAP results were used to validate their data.
Among the 2.7 million patients who were treated at the health care organization, 3.6% of patients had one or more reported food allergies or intolerances, which were more common in women (4.2%) and Asians (4.3%). Shellfish (0.9%), fruit and vegetable (0.7%), dairy (0.5%) and peanut (0.5%) were the most frequently reported allergies in this organization.
IgE-mediated reactions accounted for approximately 48.1% of these instances, and anaphylactic events occurred in 15.9% of patients. For patients with a peanut allergy, 20% were challenged with a radioallergosorbent test or an ImmunoCAP. IgE levels of 3 or higher were observed in 57.3% of these patients.
“These findings support the pressing need for more food allergy evaluations, as well as a call for more allergists/immunologists, especially given new recommendations for early food introductions, less reliance on isolated positive test results and more aggressive use of [oral food challenge] to diagnose food allergy,” Acker and colleagues wrote. “Our findings support that the EHR allergy module may be helpful in determining the epidemiology and risk factors for food allergy, as well as identifying patients for prospective clinical studies and/or food allergy evaluations.”
Disclosure: Please see the study for a full list of relevant financial disclosures.
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