To include people who never or rarely seek medical aid, the study did not rely on health insurance data, but rather on data collected at the Munich Oktoberfest in Germany. Screening examinations were performed randomly on participating visitors.
Of the 2,701 individuals in the study, at least one skin abnormality was observed in 1,662 of the participants (64.5 percent). The most common diagnoses were actinic keratosis (26.6 percent), rosacea (25.5 percent), and eczema (11.7 percent). Skin diseases increased with age and were more frequent in men (72.3 percent) than in women (58.0 percent). Nearly two-thirds of the affected participants were unaware of their abnormal skin findings.
