Faced with an increasing incidence and prevalence of autoimmune disease in the United States —approximately 23.5 million Americans are affected across the country, according to the NIH — Bonnie Feldman, MBA, DDS, says it is time to acknowledge what she calls “an invisible epidemic.”

“Looking at the bigger picture of all autoimmune diseases together, not only do we have increasing incidence and prevalence that everyone agrees is happening, but we might even say we have an unacknowledged public health crisis,” Feldman, who is founder and CEO of Your Autoimmunity Connection, a consultant and patient advocacy group focused on autoimmune disease, told Healio Rheumatology. “Unlike a disease like cancer, in which the collected data is aggregated, the data around autoimmune disease is still collected individually by each disease.”