eastcoastdl
Est. Contributor
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- 334
- Role
- Diaper Lover
- Incontinent
I ask myself "I wonder how many people I pass a day who are also wearing diapers", and the only reliable way (aside from asking people outright "Are you wearing a diaper", which will likely not have good results lol) is to seek out empirical data. I had some free time to put towards it, so I did a little research on this topic. If statistics and basic math make you cringe, feel free to skip to the end, otherwise read on:
According to a study(1) by the National Library of Medicine, about 20% - 50% of women experience some form of incontinence (while only 3%-10% of men), although the large majority of those don't have severe or often enough problems to even use any products (or at the most use pads). Furthermore it shows that women of pre-ederly age who report their IC symptoms as "bothersome" represent roughly 4 - 8% of the population. According to a more recent study(2) of women who reported incontinence symptoms, approximately 3 - 7% severe to very severe levels of leakage, so we can average those together. The study(2) does say that 21.5% of IC sufferers have symptoms every day, but does not cross reference this to severity level (as light IC is frequently not a daily occurrence), so we have to guess that most of those who suffer from "severe" to "very severe" symptoms will likely have it occur daily. There is very little research done on IC in men, so we will have to guess its impact is similar to women and use those same figures adjusted to the percentage of men, 0.6% - 2.6%, making a total of roughly 4% - 10% of the population. It's these roughly 7% of people who have persistent symptoms and would use pullups or diapers (roughly 1% of men and 6% of women) of all ages. Everyone knows that IC is more prevalent as you get older, so if we want to restrict this to people aged 20 - 49 that would be 48% of the study(2). This means that statistically 1 in 200 men below the age of 49 you walk past are wearing incontinence protection (of at least pull ups or diapers), and 1 in 40 women, although the actual number may be slightly lower to account for those who do have IC bad enough to need pullups or diapers, but don't suffer IC symptoms every day.
In addition to that 3.5% incontinent people, we'd have to add on the ABDLs and those who are wearing by choice, although there are no studies to cite research data from. The only way we could ascertain the number of ABDLs would be to ask the likes of Rearz, ABU, Bambino, and others to provide anonymized data list the consisted of only order count per postal code over a period of time (such as one year). That, compared to census records, would finally answer the old question of "How many ABDLs are there like us?". If you find this as tantalizing as I do and have a reputation with any of these guys, please show them this thread and have them reach out to me, haha. In the mean time, I have to make a wild guess and say 1 in 500 people have some form of ABDL kink, although I'm sure this varies widely by area. Although I think this is wrong, it doesn't materially affect the numbers above. There may be many more to support a booming ABDL diaper market!
So if you've skipped to the bottom, TL;DR: roughly about 1 in every 30 people under the age of 49 who you walk past is wearing pullups or diapers to either manage severe IC or wearing by choice! Which is more than I had thought before I started this little thought exercise.
(1) Prevalence of Urinary Incontinence, 2001 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1476070/
(2) Updating the Prevalence of Urinary Incontinence in Adult Women, 2021 https://www.ics.org/2021/abstract/489
According to a study(1) by the National Library of Medicine, about 20% - 50% of women experience some form of incontinence (while only 3%-10% of men), although the large majority of those don't have severe or often enough problems to even use any products (or at the most use pads). Furthermore it shows that women of pre-ederly age who report their IC symptoms as "bothersome" represent roughly 4 - 8% of the population. According to a more recent study(2) of women who reported incontinence symptoms, approximately 3 - 7% severe to very severe levels of leakage, so we can average those together. The study(2) does say that 21.5% of IC sufferers have symptoms every day, but does not cross reference this to severity level (as light IC is frequently not a daily occurrence), so we have to guess that most of those who suffer from "severe" to "very severe" symptoms will likely have it occur daily. There is very little research done on IC in men, so we will have to guess its impact is similar to women and use those same figures adjusted to the percentage of men, 0.6% - 2.6%, making a total of roughly 4% - 10% of the population. It's these roughly 7% of people who have persistent symptoms and would use pullups or diapers (roughly 1% of men and 6% of women) of all ages. Everyone knows that IC is more prevalent as you get older, so if we want to restrict this to people aged 20 - 49 that would be 48% of the study(2). This means that statistically 1 in 200 men below the age of 49 you walk past are wearing incontinence protection (of at least pull ups or diapers), and 1 in 40 women, although the actual number may be slightly lower to account for those who do have IC bad enough to need pullups or diapers, but don't suffer IC symptoms every day.
In addition to that 3.5% incontinent people, we'd have to add on the ABDLs and those who are wearing by choice, although there are no studies to cite research data from. The only way we could ascertain the number of ABDLs would be to ask the likes of Rearz, ABU, Bambino, and others to provide anonymized data list the consisted of only order count per postal code over a period of time (such as one year). That, compared to census records, would finally answer the old question of "How many ABDLs are there like us?". If you find this as tantalizing as I do and have a reputation with any of these guys, please show them this thread and have them reach out to me, haha. In the mean time, I have to make a wild guess and say 1 in 500 people have some form of ABDL kink, although I'm sure this varies widely by area. Although I think this is wrong, it doesn't materially affect the numbers above. There may be many more to support a booming ABDL diaper market!
So if you've skipped to the bottom, TL;DR: roughly about 1 in every 30 people under the age of 49 who you walk past is wearing pullups or diapers to either manage severe IC or wearing by choice! Which is more than I had thought before I started this little thought exercise.
(1) Prevalence of Urinary Incontinence, 2001 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1476070/
(2) Updating the Prevalence of Urinary Incontinence in Adult Women, 2021 https://www.ics.org/2021/abstract/489
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