Could gastrointestinal disorders differ in two close but divergent social environments?

We conducted a retrospective register study using data of diagnosed gastrointestinal disorders (cumulative incidence rates) derived from an administrative health care register based on medical records assigned by the physicians at hospitals and primary care.Functional gastrointestinal diseases and peptic ulcers were more frequent in the white-collar city, while diagnoses in the gallbladder area were significantly more frequent in the blue-collar city. Functional dyspepsia, irritable bowel syndrome, and unspecified functional bowel diseases, and celiac disease, were more frequent among women while esophageal reflux, peptic ulcers, gastric and rectal cancers were more frequent among men regardless of social environment.Knowledge of the occurrence of gastrointestinal problems in populations is better understood if viewed in a context were the social environment is included. Indicators of the social environment should therefore also be considered in future studies of the occurrence of gastrointestinal problems.Many public health problems in modern society affect the gastrointestinal area. Knowledge of the disease occurrence in populations is better understood if viewed in a psychosocial context including indicators of the social environment where people spend their lives. The etiology of functional gastrointestinal diseases (FGD) such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), functional dyspepsia (FD) and gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) is complex and in many ways still unclear and there is still a lack of understanding of the pathology [1,2]. The dysfunctions that lead to or aggravate FGD are a combination of biological, psychological and psychosocial factors [3]. These multiple sets of factors are likely to interact in the pathogenesis and clinical manifestations of the disorders. This multi-factorial pattern is often evident in other gastrointestinal disorders and in many other public health diseases in a complex contemporary society. Several attempts have been made to creat