Anyone with a child in school these days is likely to be very aware of the growing concerns related to food allergies. In many elementary schools in the United States, special tables in the lunch room are set aside for children whose lunches contain any nuts, like the traditional peanut butter and jelly sandwich. In some schools, foods containing nuts of any kind are banned entirely. This is because of a rising number of children who suffer from food allergies, particularly nut allergies, and the rising severity of their allergic reactions.

Nut allergies have been the fastest growing food allergies in recent years. In 1997, approximately 278,000 children under the age of 18 in the United States (0.04% of the age group) suffered from an allergy to peanuts. In 2008, that number had risen to over a million (1.5% of children in the age group).

Today’s market size is the estimated number of children (under the age of 18 years) in the United States who suffer severe food allergies. It is a calculation based on a study that showed that one in thirteen children suffer food allergies and that nearly 40 percent of those children suffer severe allergic reactions, severe enough to require the use of a drug like epinephrine to combat the reaction and save their lives.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2010
Market size: 2.28 million
Source: Katie Thomas, “Tiny Lifesavers for a Growing Worry,” The New York Times, September 8, 2012, page B1. Population data used to calculate today’s market size are from “Table 1. Population by Sex and Selected Age Groups: 2000 and 2010,” Age and Sex Composition: 2010, May 2011, one of the Census Bureau’s reports on the 2010 Census of the United States, available here.
Original source: A study published in the journal Pediatrics and referenced in the source article listed above.
Posted on September 12, 2012