Increased chronic disease prevalence among the younger generation: Findings from a population-based data linkage study to inform chronic disease ascertainment among reproductive-aged Australian women

BACKGROUND: Chronic disease represents an ongoing public health challenge in Australia with women disproportionately affected and at younger ages compared to men. Accurate prevalence and ascertainment of chronic disease among women of reproductive age at the population level is essential for meeting the family planning and reproductive health challenges that chronic diseases pose. This study estimated the prevalence of chronic disease among younger Australian women of reproductive age, in order to ascertain key conditions that would benefit from targeted family planning support strategies. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Population-level survey data from the 1973–78 and 1989–95 cohorts of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health were linked to health service use, pharmaceutical, cancer and cause of death data to ascertain the prevalence and chronic disease trends for ten chronic health conditions associated with poor maternal and foetal outcomes. Individual chronic disease algorithms were developed for each chronic disease of interest using the available linked datasets. Lifetime prevalence of chronic disease varied substantially based on each individual data source for each of the conditions of interest. When all data sources were considered, all conditions with the exception of mental health conditions were higher among women in the 1973–78 cohort. However, when focused on point prevalence at similar ages (approximately 25–30 years), the chronic disease trend for women in the 1989–95 cohort was substantially higher, particularly for mental health conditions (70.4% vs 23.6%), diabetes (4.5% vs 1.3%) and multimorbidity (17.9% vs 9.1%). CONCLUSIONS: Given the low concordance between individual data sources, the use of multiple data sources are recommended for chronic disease research focused on women of reproductive age. In order to reduce the increasing chronic disease and multimorbidity trend among women, strategic chronic disease interventions are required to be implemented in childhood and adolescence to ensure the long-term health of not only current but also future generations.