Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Context: Optimizing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) care depends on understanding who composes the specialist workforce and how it is geographically distributed. Objective To characterize the demographic, academic, and professional profile of active GEDIIB members and to explore regional heterogeneity. Methods Cross-sectional survey among active GEDIIB members using a structured online questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used for overall characterization. Regional comparisons of key categorical variables were performed with Pearson’s chi-square or Fisher’s exact test, with Cramer’s V as effect size. Results A total of 310 members responded, corresponding to 30.1% of the active registry and exceeding the prespecified sample size. Women accounted for 58.1% of respondents (95%CI 52.5–63.4) and physicians for 90.3% (95%CI 86.5–93.1). The Southeast concentrated 42.3% of respondents, whereas the North contributed 4.2%. Among physicians, gastroenterology was the main specialty in 63.9%. Most respondents worked in both public and private sectors (62.3%; 95%CI 56.7–67.5), reported a 40-hour weekly workload (52.9%), and did not perform on-call shifts (78.7%). Regional heterogeneity was significant only for practice sector (P = 0.002; Cramer’s V = 0.196). Conclusion GEDIIB members are predominantly mid-career gastroenterologists with high academic qualification and strong concentration in Brazil’s Southeast and South. These data support targeted strategies to expand specialist training and IBD care capacity in underserved regions.</p>