Quantifying the underestimation of projected global diabetes prevalence by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Diabetes Atlas

The figures for currently observed as well as projected global diabetes prevalence from the IDF (International Diabetes Federation) atlas are the standard sources when reporting the burden of diabetes. The IDF considers their projections to be conservative estimates and some have criticized the numbers for underestimating the future burden of diabetes.1–3 This letter gives a numerical quantification of the difference between projected and observed global diabetes prevalence presented in the IDF Diabetes Atlas. Data on observed (projected) global diabetes prevalence for the age range 20–79 from the years 2003 (projected estimate for 2025), 2007 (2025), 2010 (2030), 2011 (2030), 2013 (2035), 2015 (2040), 2017 (2045), and 2019 (2045) were obtained from the IDF website. To quantify the difference in observed versus projected prevalence and the lead time of the observed versus projected prevalence, we performed two analyses, one on the prevalence scale and one on the time scale. In both analyses, we estimated two linear regression models, …