Multimorbidity patterns and disability and healthcare use in Europe: do the associations change with the regional socioeconomic status?

Lluís Zacarías-Pons (), Oriol Turró-Garriga, Marc Saez and Josep Garre-Olmo
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Lluís Zacarías-Pons: Girona Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBGI)
Oriol Turró-Garriga: Fundació Salut Empordà
Marc Saez: University of Girona
Josep Garre-Olmo: Girona Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBGI)

European Journal of Ageing, 2024, vol. 21, issue 1, No 1, 10 pages

Abstract: Abstract Multimorbidity, the concurrence of several chronic conditions, is a rising concern that increases the years lived with disability and poses a burden on healthcare systems. Little is known on how it interacts with socioeconomic deprivation, previously associated with poor health-related outcomes. We aimed to characterize the association between multimorbidity and these outcomes and how this relationship may change with socioeconomic development of regions. 55,915 individuals interviewed in 2017 were drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, a population-based study. A Latent Class Analysis was conducted to fit multimorbidity patterns based on 16 self-reported conditions. Physical limitation, quality-of-life and healthcare utilization outcomes were regressed on those patterns adjusting for additional covariates. Those analyses were then extended to assess whether such associations varied with the region socioeconomic status. We identified six different patterns, labelled according to their more predominant chronic conditions. After the “healthy” class, the “metabolic” and the “osteoarticular” classes had the best outcomes involving limitations and the lowest healthcare utilization. The “neuro-affective-ulcer” and the “several conditions” classes yielded the highest probabilities of physical limitation, whereas the “cardiovascular” group had the highest probability of hospitalization. The association of multimorbidity over physical limitations appeared to be stronger when living in a deprived region, especially for metabolic and osteoarticular conditions, whereas no major effect differences were found for healthcare use. Multimorbidity groups do differentiate in terms of limitation and healthcare utilization. Such differences are exacerbated with socioeconomic inequities between regions even within Europe.

Keywords: Multimorbidity; Health inequities; Quality of life; Aged; Latent class analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s10433-023-00795-6

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