Evaluating differences in prevalence of food allergies between two geographic regions: Australia and US

Abstract

Rationale: Food allergies are becoming a global health impact. Australia has one of the world’s highest food allergy prevalence, and the US has seen increase prevalence in the past two decades. Although they differ in geography, they still have overlapping commonalities of food allergens. Nevertheless, there is limited research comparing the frequency of the different food allergens in different regions of the world. Methods: The prevalence rates of food allergies in the US and Australia was found using two population cohort studies. Binomial testing was used to compare the proportions of allergens: peanut, milk, shellfish and egg. The data obtained from the US study was stratified to age 1 in order to be comparable to the Austrian study. Results: Food allergy prevalence in the US and Australia is 6.7% and 11%, respectively. There was a statistically significant higher proportions of 1-year-old children diagnosed with egg and peanut allergies in Australia. The proportion of peanut allergies in the US was lower (0.9, CI 0.81-0.9) compared to Australia (7.6, 6.9-8.4), and egg allergies in the US was also lower (1.5, 1.48-1.6) compared to Australia (13.57, 12.6-14.5). The proportions of milk and shellfish allergies show no statistical significance. Conclusions: Though both regions share similar food allergies, Australia had a higher prevalence than the US when comparing egg and peanut allergies. Evaluating the rates in geographically different regions may give insight on the contributing factors of food allergies, concerning ethnicity and environment.