The occurrence of hand eczema depends on basal
characteristics such as age, sex, atopy, and occupation
in the population that are investigated. In a
Swedish study the self-reported 1-year prevalence of
hand eczema in the general population was 11.8% in
1983 and had decreased to 9.7% in 1996 [36, 39]. The
crude incidence rate of self-reported hand eczema in
individuals aged 20–65 years was recently reported to
be 5.5 cases per 1,000 person-years [40]. The incidence
of hand eczema is high among young people.
In school children the 1-year prevalence of hand eczema
was reported to be 7.3% for children aged
12–16 years and 10.0% for children aged 16–19 years
[50, 82]. Early onset of hand eczema is frequent, and
in around one-third of cases onset of hand eczema
occurs before the age of 20 [40].