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Abstract: Advances in understanding the epidemiology of endometriosis have lagged behind other diseases because of methodologic problems related to disease definition and control selection. Nevertheless, a better picture of the epidemiology of endometriosis has emerged over the past few decades. Prevalence estimates of the disease in clinic populations vary from about a 4% occurrence of largely asymptomatic endometriosis found in women undergoing tubal ligation to 50% of teenagers with intractable dysmenorrhea. General population incidence during the 1970s in this country has been suggested to be 1.6 per 1000 white females aged 15‐49, while a more current study based upon hospital discharges finds endometriosis as a first listed diagnosis in 1.3 per 1000 discharges in women aged 15‐44. There is a clinical impression that blacks have lower rates of endometriosis and Orientals have higher rates …