# Reporting estimates and confidence intervals for levels of categorical variable when word count is limited

I have the following (fictitious) output from a Poisson model (count ~ AgeGroup + other variables):

                  IRR    %95 CI
Age Group 20-39   1.4    1.5, 1.7
Age Group 40-59   1.5    1.4, 1.6
Age Group 60+     1.8    1.5, 2.0


Reference age group is < 20.

I'm writing a conference abstract. I know I should always report the confidence intervals along with the estimates, but the word count is tight (250).

Among the results I'm interested in reporting is the general contrast in incidence between those < 20 (the reference group) with all of those >= 20 together.

I still need to keep the detailed age groups in the model for the purpose of the full results.

Is it acceptable to say something like: "People aged 20 or more have in general higher incidence" and report the lower and higher IRRs for age groups without reporting CI's (i.e. "IRR's ranged from 1.4 to 1.8")?

Or is it better to report the smallest lowest CI limit and the greatest highest limit for the age groups (i.e. "CI ranged from 1.5 to 2.0")?

Is there a better/safer approach to report, in numbers, the contrast of interest with a minimal number of words? Should I redo the analysis on combined age groups (<20, 20+)?