Global and regional prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in population-based studies from 2000 to 2022: A pooled analysis of 7.9 million participants

Vitamin D deficiency causes the bone hypomineralization disorder osteomalacia in humans and is associated with many non-skeletal disorders. We aim to estimate the global and regional prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in people aged 1 year or older from 2000 to 2022.

We systematically searched Web of Science, PubMed (MEDLINE), Embase, Scopus, and Google databases on December 31, 2021, and updated them on August 20, 2022, without language and time restrictions. Meanwhile, we identified references of relevant system reviews and eligible articles and included the latest and unpublished data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 2015-2016 and 2017-2018) database. The studies investigating the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in population-based studies were included. A standardized data extraction form was used to collect information from eligible studies. We used a random-effects meta-analysis to estimate the global and regional prevalence of vitamin D deficiency. We stratified meta-analyses by latitude, season, six WHO regions, the World Bank income groups, gender, and age groups. This study was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021292586).