Emerging multimorbidity patterns and their links with selected health outcomes in a working-age population group

BACKGROUND: The study aims to identify recurrent multimorbidity pattern among individuals in the age-group 15-64 years. Further, the study examines the association of these identified patterns with sociodemographic variables and selected health outcomes. METHODS: The study utilized data on 2912 individuals in the age-group 15-64 years collected under the burden of diseases study among patients attending public health care settings of Odisha. A latent class analysis was used to identify commonly occurring disease clusters. RESULTS: The findings suggested that 2.4% of the individuals were multimorbid. Two latent disease clusters were identified, low co-morbidity and Hypertension-Diabetes-Arthritis. Findings highlighted that age, belonging to a non-aboriginal ethnicity and urban area increased the risk of being in the ‘Hypertension-Diabetes-Arthritis’ group. Furthermore, 50% of the individual in the ‘Hypertension-Diabetes-Arthritis’ group reported poor quality of life, whereas 30% reported poor self-rated health compared to only 11% by their counterparts. Additionally, the mean health score reported by the individuals in the ‘Hypertension-Diabetes-Arthritis’ group was 39.9 compared to 46.9 by their counterparts. CONCLUSIONS: The study findings hint towards increasing burden of multimorbidity among the working age population, which depicts a shift in causation of diseases as a result of which preventive measures also need to be taken much prior.