THURSDAY, Nov. 7 (HealthDay News) -- More than one in five U.S. adults report having been diagnosed with arthritis, with a substantial proportion additionally reporting arthritis-attributable activity limitations (AAAL), according to a report published in the Nov. 8 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Kamil E. Barbour, Ph.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues analyzed data from the 2010 to 2012 National Health Interview Survey to update previous prevalence estimates for arthritis.
The researchers found that 52.5 million adults (22.7 percent) self-reported doctor-diagnosed arthritis. Nearly 10 percent of all adults (or 43.2 percent of those with arthritis) reported AAAL. Doctor-diagnosed arthritis was prevalent in 49.0 percent of people with heart disease, 47.3 percent of people with with diabetes, and 31.2 percent of obese people. The prevalence of AAAL among people with these conditions was 26.8, 25.7, and 15.2 percent, respectively.
"Greater use of evidence-based interventions such as chronic disease self-management education and physical activity interventions that have been proven to reduce pain and improve quality of life among adults with chronic diseases might help reduce the personal and societal burden of arthritis," the authors write.
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