Associations between sleep changes and multimorbidity patterns in middle-aged and older Chinese adults

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Sleep Medicine
• Public Health

Background:

• Multimorbidity, the coexistence of multiple chronic conditions, is a growing concern in aging populations.
• Sleep duration and quality are increasingly recognized as crucial factors influencing health outcomes in older adults.
• Understanding the relationship between sleep changes and multimorbidity patterns can inform targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify distinct patterns of multimorbidity among Chinese middle-aged and older adults.
• To investigate the association between changes and long-term trajectories in sleep duration and these multimorbidity patterns.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of data from 9,747 participants in the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011 and 2020 waves).
• Latent class analysis to identify multimorbidity patterns.
• Logistic and multinomial logistic regression to assess associations between sleep duration changes/trajectories and multimorbidity.

Main Results:

• Five multimorbidity patterns were identified: relatively healthy, metabolism, arthritis-digestive, respiratory, and multi-system morbidity.
• A decrease in sleep duration of ≥1.0 hour was significantly associated with increased odds of overall multimorbidity and specific patterns (metabolism, arthritis-digestive, respiratory, multi-system).
• Unfavorable sleep trajectories (short-short, healthy-short) were linked to higher odds of multimorbidity, particularly arthritis-digestive, respiratory, and multi-system conditions.

Conclusions:

• Decreases in sleep duration (≥1.0 hour) and unfavorable sleep trajectories are statistically associated with higher odds of multimorbidity in Chinese older adults.
• Specific multimorbidity patterns, especially those involving metabolic, arthritis-digestive, respiratory, and multi-system conditions, are particularly linked to sleep duration changes.