Multimorbidity, ageing and mortality: normative data and cohort study in an American population.

Area of Science:

• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Gerontology

Background:

• Multimorbidity, the presence of multiple chronic conditions, is a growing public health concern.
• Assessing the distribution and impact of multimorbidity across diverse populations is crucial for effective healthcare planning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the percentile distribution of multimorbidity across age, sex, race, and ethnicity.
• To evaluate the utility of multimorbidity percentiles in predicting mortality risk.

Main Methods:

• A population-based descriptive and cohort study was conducted using 10 years of data from Olmsted County, Minnesota.
• Medical records were used to count chronic conditions for each individual on their birthdays, transforming counts into population-based percentiles.
• Time-to-event analyses were employed to assess mortality risk associated with different multimorbidity quintiles.

Main Results:

• The study analyzed 238,010 individuals over 1,458,094 person-birthdays.
• Multimorbidity percentiles showed minimal variation across sex, race, or ethnicity.
• Higher multimorbidity quintiles (4 and 5) were associated with increased mortality risk, especially pronounced in younger age groups and women.

Conclusions:

• Multimorbidity percentiles serve as a straightforward and intuitive method for evaluating relative health status.
• This approach demonstrates utility in predicting short-term mortality, with notable implications for younger populations and females.