Inflammatory Bowel Disease in 2035: A National Study of the Canadian Gastro-Intestinal Epidemiology Consortium (CanGIEC)

Approximately 0.8% of Canadians are living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which consists of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis-more than 322,000 Canadians in total, and that number is quickly increasing. Soon, more than one out of every 100 Canadians will be living with IBD. In Canada, IBD costs the healthcare system over $3 billion per year. Because ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease are chronic, incurable diseases typically emerging during youth, the number of people afflicted by IBD continues to steadily rise in Canada. The goal of the proposed project is to prepare Canada's healthcare system to meet the challenges that people with IBD and society will face over the next decade from the rising burden of IBD: Soaring costs, more complicated healthcare needs due to coexisting medical conditions, and an ever-growing number of people needing care. We address this challenge by building statistical models, which account for the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and forecast the future needs to care for the IBD community. This research facilitates implementing innovations in healthcare delivery to improve the quality of care for people with IBD. This research program is a partnership with Crohn's and Colitis Canada, whose mission is to improve the quality of life for everyone affected by these diseases. Through this partnership and research, we help them move closer to achieving that goal. Critically, our research involves members of the IBD community as patient and caregiver partners in the scientific process so that they can have a say in our research goals, explain what is important to them and how it affects them, and help to identify crucial knowledge gaps and actionable outcomes that Crohn's and Colitis Canada can use to improve the lives of people living with these diseases.