Geographical Heterogeneity of Multiple Sclerosis Prevalence in France

Diane Pivot, Marc Debouverie, Michel Grzebyk, David Brassat, Michel Clanet, Pierre Clavelou, Christian Confavreux, Gilles Edan, Emmanuelle Leray, Thibault Moreau, Sandra Vukusic, Guy Hédelin and Francis Guillemin

PLOS ONE, 2016, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: Introduction: Geographical variation in the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) is controversial. Heterogeneity is important to acknowledge to adapt the provision of care within the healthcare system. We aimed to investigate differences in prevalence of MS in departments in the French territory. Methods: We estimated MS prevalence on October 31, 2004 in 21 administrative departments in France (22% of the metropolitan departments) by using multiple data sources: the main French health insurance systems, neurologist networks devoted to MS and the Technical Information Agency of Hospitalization. We used a spatial Bayesian approach based on estimating the number of MS cases from 2005 and 2008 capture–recapture studies to analyze differences in prevalence. Results: The age- and sex-standardized prevalence of MS per 100,000 inhabitants ranged from 68.1 (95% credible interval 54.6, 84.4) in Hautes-Pyrénées (southwest France) to 296.5 (258.8, 338.9) in Moselle (northeast France). The greatest prevalence was in the northeast departments, and the other departments showed great variability. Discussion: By combining multiple data sources into a spatial Bayesian model, we found heterogeneity in MS prevalence among the 21 departments of France, some with higher prevalence than anticipated from previous publications. No clear explanation related to health insurance coverage and hospital facilities can be advanced. Population migration, socioeconomic status of the population studied and environmental effects are suspected.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167556 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 67556&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0167556

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167556

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().