(Press-News.org) NEW YORK, NY – January 6, 2026 – The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation today revealed compelling new research pointing to major healthcare access challenges and financial burdens disproportionately affecting young adults with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). The national survey, conducted by the Foundation, assessed healthcare and financial experiences across three groups: young adults aged 18-25, adults aged 26-64, and caregivers of pediatric patients under 18.
The findings, published today in Crohn’s & Colitis 360, are based on responses from over 1,700 IBD patients and caregivers.
Key Findings:
Step Therapy Mandates: Young adults (18-25) were significantly more likely to experience insurance-mandated step therapy— a policy where insurance requires patients to try a lower-cost medication first, and only cover the one their doctor prescribed if the initial option doesn’t work—with 35% reporting these requirements in the past 12 months—compared to only 27% of adults and 20% of pediatric caregivers.
Insurance Navigation Knowledge: More than one third (35%) of young adults reported low confidence in knowing which questions to ask their insurer during coverage issues, versus 25% of pediatric caregivers indicating greater uncertainty and need for support among young adults.
Financial Strain and Employment Impact: 18% of young adult patients took on extra jobs or increased work hours to cover healthcare or insurance costs for their IBD, a significantly higher rate than both adults (11%) and pediatric caregivers (11%).
The goal of the survey was to assess the state of access to care for patients with IBD, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and affects approximately 1 in 100 Americans. The study was conducted as an online survey of IBD patients and their caregivers in the United States from February to June 2023.
“These numbers demonstrate a clear gap in support and guidance for young adults as they transition from pediatric care and begin managing their own health insurance,” said Laura Wingate, Chief Education, Support & Advocacy Officer at the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation. “The data show that not only are younger patients at greater risk of having to jump through insurance hoops to access essential medications, they also face substantial financial pressure—often working extra jobs just to afford care.”
“The research highlights a need for targeted educational resources, improved insurance navigation assistance, and policy attention to mitigate the unique challenges faced by young adults with IBD,” said the study’s lead author, Ross Maltz, MD, pediatric gastroenterologist, Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
The Foundation is calling on partners, advocates, and the broader healthcare community to help amplify these findings and promote equitable access to care for all age groups.
About the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation
The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation is the leading non-profit organization focused on both research and patient support for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The Foundation's mission is to cure Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and to improve the quality of life for the millions of Americans living with IBD. For more information, visit crohnscolitisfoundation.org, call 888-694-8872, or email info@crohnscolitisfoundation.org.
END
Crohn's & Colitis Foundation survey reveals more than 1/3 of young adults with IBD face step therapy insurance barriers
18% of young adults with IBD work extra hours to afford care; Over 1 in 3 lack confidence in navigating insurance
2026-01-06
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Tethered UAV autonomous knotting on environmental structures for transport
2026-01-06
“Cable-driven systems excel at heavy-load transport but are limited by fixed anchoring points in unstructured environments,” explained study corresponding author Lihua Xie from Nanyang Technological University. The core innovations include (a) a human-in-the-loop knot planner integrating enclosing plane extraction, frontier-based path search, and knotting trajectory generation; (b) three key optimization metrics (enclosing planarity, tether visibility, tether clearance) ensuring task reliability; and (c) seamless integration of UAV mobility and winch load-bearing capability. “This system enables ...
Decentralized social media platforms unlock authentic consumer feedback
2026-01-06
PULLMAN, Wash. — Businesses looking for clearer insight into how consumers truly feel about their products, campaigns or brand decisions may find more authentic reactions on decentralized social media platforms, according to new research from Washington State University.
The study, which was published in the European Journal of Marketing, found that people express stronger emotions and engage in less self-censorship on decentralized platforms than on traditional, centralized sites. Centralized platforms — such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X, formerly Twitter — are owned and operated by single corporations that control content and user data. Decentralized platforms ...
American Pediatric Society announces Vanderbilt University School of Medicine as host institution for APS Howland Visiting Professor Program
2026-01-06
January 6, 2026 – The American Pediatric Society (APS) is pleased to announce that Vanderbilt University School of Medicine has been selected as the host institution for the newly reinstated APS Howland Visiting Professor Program. This program serves as an extension of the prestigious APS John Howland Award, the highest honor bestowed by APS in recognition of distinguished leadership and contributions to academic pediatrics.
The 2025 APS John Howland Award recipient, renowned pediatric pulmonology leader Bonnie W. Ramsey, MD, will visit the institution to share her knowledge and experience, exchange ideas and ...
Scientists discover first method to safely back up quantum information
2026-01-06
A team of researchers at the University of Waterloo have made a breakthrough in quantum computing that elegantly bypasses the fundamental “no cloning” problem.
Quantum computing is an exciting technological frontier, where information is stored and processed in tiny units — called qubits. Qubits can be stored, for example, in individual electrons, photons (particles of light), atoms, ions or tiny currents.
Universities, industry, and governments around the world are spending billions of dollars to perfect the technology for controlling these qubits ...
A role for orange pigments in birds and human redheads
2026-01-06
A pigment that makes feathers and hair orange helps prevent cellular damage by removing excess cysteine from cells. Pheomelanin is an orange-to-red pigment that is built with the amino acid cysteine and found in human red hair and fair skin, as well as in bird feathers. Previous research has shown that pheomelanin is associated with increased melanoma risk, raising questions about why evolution has maintained genetic variants that promote pheomelanin production. Ismael Galván and colleagues studied 65 adult zebra finches divided into treatment and control groups. In the ...
Pathways to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for Southeast Asia
2026-01-06
Could Southeast Asia become carbon neutral by 2050, even as energy demand increases? The region is growing quickly and still relies heavily on fossil fuels. A modeling study by Bin Su and colleagues provides an energy system optimization model with pathways to net-zero emissions by 2050 for the electricity and hydrogen sectors in members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Cambodia. The model simulates energy production and demand ...
A JBNU–KIMS collaborative study on a cost-effective alloy matches superalloys for power plants and energy infrastructure
2026-01-06
The emergence of carbon-neutral energy systems such as high-temperature electrolysis, solar thermal power plants, small modular reactors, and hydrogen- and ammonia-based processes has necessitated the development of novel structural materials that exhibit outstanding corrosion resistance and mechanical properties even at high temperatures and under harsh environments. Notably, traditional austenitic stainless steels (ASSs) fail in these conditions. Addressing this technological gap, materials science engineers have come up with Ni- and Fe-based ...
New study overturns long-held model of how plants coordinate immune responses.
2026-01-06
University of Warwick researchers discover rapid, jasmonate-driven, early immune response in plants using breakthrough live-imaging tool.
Plants mobilise their immune defences far earlier than scientists have believed for decades — and through a previously overlooked early signalling mechanism - according to a new study published in Nature Plants.
Unlike animals, plants are literally rooted to the spot and cannot deploy specialised immune cells or antibodies, nor run away. Instead, every cell must be capable of responding to attack from pathogenic viruses, bacteria, fungi, or insect pests. When attacked plants quickly initiate defence responses ...
New AI model predicts disease risk while you sleep
2026-01-06
A poor night’s sleep portends a bleary-eyed next day, but it could also hint at diseases that will strike years down the road. A new artificial intelligence model developed by Stanford Medicine researchers and their colleagues can use physiological recordings from one night’s sleep to predict a person’s risk of developing more than 100 health conditions.
Known as SleepFM, the model was trained on nearly 600,000 hours of sleep data collected from 65,000 participants. The sleep data comes ...
Scientists discover molecular ‘reshuffle’ and crack an 80-year-old conundrum
2026-01-06
Researchers at the University of St Andrews have uncovered a long‑elusive molecular ‘reshuffle', a breakthrough that tackles one of chemistry’s most persistent challenges and could transform the way medicines are manufactured.
In a paper published today (6th January) in Nature Chemistry, researchers from the School of Chemistry have found a key to unlocking an 80-year-old chemical puzzle, which could have important ramifications for fine chemical processes like those involved in the manufacture of medicines.
Chiral molecules are asymmetric or non-superimposable on their mirror image. Each side is different, existing in “right hand” ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
How Japanese medical trainees view artificial intelligence in medicine
MambaAlign fusion framework for detecting defects missed by inspection systems
Children born with upper limb difference show the incredible adaptability of the young brain
How bacteria can reclaim lost energy, nutrients, and clean water from wastewater
Fast-paced lives demand faster vision: ecology shapes how “quickly” animals see time
Global warming and heat stress risk close in on the Tour de France
New technology reveals hidden DNA scaffolding built before life ‘switches on’
New study reveals early healthy eating shapes lifelong brain health
Trashing cancer’s ‘undruggable’ proteins
Industrial research labs were invented in Europe but made the U.S. a tech superpower
Enzymes work as Maxwell's demon by using memory stored as motion
Methane’s missing emissions: The underestimated impact of small sources
Beating cancer by eating cancer
How sleep disruption impairs social memory: Oxytocin circuits reveal mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities
Natural compound from pomegranate leaves disrupts disease-causing amyloid
A depression treatment that once took eight weeks may work just as well in one
New study calls for personalized, tiered approach to postpartum care
The hidden breath of cities: Why we need to look closer at public fountains
Rewetting peatlands could unlock more effective carbon removal using biochar
Microplastics discovered in prostate tumors
ACES marks 150 years of the Morrow Plots, our nation's oldest research field
Physicists open door to future, hyper-efficient ‘orbitronic’ devices
$80 million supports research into exceptional longevity
Why the planet doesn’t dry out together: scientists solve a global climate puzzle
Global greening: The Earth’s green wave is shifting
You don't need to be very altruistic to stop an epidemic
Signs on Stone Age objects: Precursor to written language dates back 40,000 years
MIT study reveals climatic fingerprints of wildfires and volcanic eruptions
A shift from the sandlot to the travel team for youth sports
Hair-width LEDs could replace lasers
[Press-News.org] Crohn's & Colitis Foundation survey reveals more than 1/3 of young adults with IBD face step therapy insurance barriers18% of young adults with IBD work extra hours to afford care; Over 1 in 3 lack confidence in navigating insurance