The multifactorial etiology of celiac disease explored by combining several national registers

iii Original papers v List of Abbreviations vi Background 1 Celiac Disease 1 Celiac Disease in history 1 Global overview 2 Geographical variation in Celiac Disease incidence 3 Celiac Disease in Sweden 3 Celiac Disease diagnosis 4 The multifactorial etiology of Celiac Disease 4 Aims of the thesis 9 Conceptual frameworks 11 Methods 13 Overview of the study designs 13 Study setting 13 Data source 14 Study variables and statistical analysis 16 Results 21 Incidence rate 21 Geographical variation in Celiac Disease 23 Environmental factors associated with Celiac Disease 27 Discussion 29 Main findings 29 Strengths and limitations 29 Celiac Disease incidence is increasing 31 Geographical variation in Celiac Disease risk 31 The life course perspective and Celiac Disease risk factors 32 The sufficient-component cause model and Celiac Disease risk factors 39 Concluding remarks and future research 41 The researcher 43 Acknowledgements 45 References 47 Appendix 61