Lim, Eun-Jin, Ahn, Yo-Chan, Jang, Eun-Su et al. · Journal of translational medicine · 2020 · DOI
This study looked at 45 research projects involving over 1 million people to estimate how many people have ME/CFS worldwide. The researchers found that about 0.68% of the general population (roughly 1 in 150 people) has ME/CFS, though the number varies depending on who was studied and how the diagnosis was made. Women are about 1.5 to 2 times more likely to have ME/CFS than men.
This comprehensive prevalence estimate provides researchers and clinicians with the most current global overview of ME/CFS burden and highlights critical gaps in diagnostic standardization that affect how many people are identified with the disease. For patients, understanding the true prevalence supports advocacy efforts and helps validate that ME/CFS is a significant population-level health problem, not a rare condition.
This study does not establish the causes of ME/CFS or explain why women have higher prevalence rates. It also does not prove that any particular diagnostic method is superior—rather, it demonstrates that different methods produce different prevalence estimates, highlighting a methodological problem rather than providing a gold standard. The wide variation in findings suggests prevalence estimates may not reflect true disease burden without standardized diagnostic criteria.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Lim, Eun-Jin, Ahn, Yo-Chan, Jang, Eun-Su, Lee, Si-Woo, Lee, Su-Hwa, & Son, Chang-Gue (2020). Systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME).. Journal of translational medicine. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-020-02269-0
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-lim-2020-systematic-review,
author = {Lim, Eun-Jin and Ahn, Yo-Chan and Jang, Eun-Su and Lee, Si-Woo and Lee, Su-Hwa and Son, Chang-Gue},
title = {Systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME).},
journal = {Journal of translational medicine},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.1186/s12967-020-02269-0},
note = {PubMed: 32093722},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lim-2020-systematic-review},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lim-2020-systematic-review
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