Prevalence and factors associated with infectious intestinal diseases in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, 2017: A population-based cross-sectional study

Abstract Background The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a rapidly developing high-income country that has experienced significant population growth, urbanisation, and improvements in the standard of living since formation in 1971. Published estimates on the prevalence of intestinal infectious diseases (IID) in the UAE are scarce and exclusively based on hospital data. The aim of this study was to provide the first prevalence estimates of IID in the UAE. Methods A population-based cross-sectional study design using a telephone-based questionnaire was used to estimate the IID prevalence in the previous four weeks in a representative sample of the Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) population from January to September 2017. Results Data were collected from 1254 participants (57.3% males; 25.2% Conclusions This study provides the first population-based prevalence estimates of IID in the UAE which are similar to China (4%) but lower than Canada (10%), the Netherlands (7%), and the United States (6%).