Grant: Fellowship - Priority Announcement - Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Approximately 1 in 150 Canadians are living with inflammatory bowel disease. Canada has one of the highest rates of IBD in the world and they are continuing to increase. This is especially true among Canadians over age 65. There are two types of IBD: Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Both diseases cause inflammation and ulcers to develop in the gastrointestinal system and follow unpredictable patterns of active disease and remission. During periods of active disease (flares), patients experience debilitating abdominal pain, diarrhea, and fatigue. Medications can be used to put the disease into remission. Older Canadians with IBD living in rural parts of Canada have less access to gastroenterologists and are more likely to visit the emergency department and be hospitalized. This project will look for variation in how patients over the age of 65 with IBD are treated in different parts of Canada. We will then look to see if the differences in treatment are associated with an increased need for hospitalization and surgery. We will use databases that include information on physician billing, prescriptions, and hospital discharge summaries from 6 Canadian provinces (Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan). We will analyze data from each province separately and then combine the results to understand differences in treatment and the disease severity across Canada.