The Urban Exposome and Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Determining Environmental Factors that Increase the Risk of IBD and the Cost of Care

The environment strongly affects our health and living in a city increases the risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This may be due to air pollution exposure, reduced green space, or other environmental factors. Our project will first describe geographic areas where IBD is more prominent, IBD surgery rates are higher, and the need for medical care for IBD is greater. We will then examine the impact of urban environmental exposures on these outcomes, such as air pollution, green space and bright lights at night. The Canadian Gastro-Intestinal Epidemiology Consortium (CanGIEC) is a team of IBD physicians and researchers from four provinces (Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan). Using large health system databases, we will link each person with IBD living in these provinces to environmental data provided by the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (CANUE) and Health Canada. We will determine how combinations of environmental factors impact the risk of IBD, the need for surgery, and the need for health care. Overall, our goal is to determine the components of living in an urban area that may explain why city-dwellers have a higher risk of IBD and to inform environmental and health policy to help decrease the risk of IBD.