The research team, led by the University of Iowa, found that about 1 in 5,000 boys, between 5 and 9 years old, have the inherited disorders. They also find the diseases appear to affect Hispanic boys more often than white or African-American boys, for reasons that are not well understood.
The findings are important, because they give a better understanding of the number of children and families affected by the disorders. They also give doctors and health-care professionals valuable information, so they can better plan to care for those affected, especially as the diseases progress.

“There were always some rather crude estimates of how common these muscular dystrophies are,” says Paul Romitti, an epidemiologist at the UI and corresponding author of the study, published online in the journal Pediatrics. “It tells us that they’re still an important public health concern.”

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