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Patterns of Prevalent Major Chronic Disease Among Older Adults in the United States
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To the Editor: Older adults with more than 1 chronic disease have worse functional status and self-rated health, use more health care, and die earlier than those with a single disease.1 Because evidence-based medical treatment has usually been directed toward single diseases, understanding specific patterns of multimorbidity may help develop strategies to improve clinical practice. Ignoring concomitant diseases while applying single-disease guidelines may lead to harm.2 The purpose of this study was to estimate patterns of major chronic disease co-occurrence in older adults.
Methods
Data were taken from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative study of US noninstitutionalized civilians.3 Data from 3 survey waves (1999-2000, 2001-2002, and 2003-2004) comprised the analytic sample of 4349 individuals aged 65 years or older. We selected 5 disease types with a leading role as a cause of death4 or morbidity5: arthritis, cerebrovascular accident, chronic lower respiratory tract disease, coronary . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Carlos O. Weiss, MD, MHS
cweiss9@jhmi.edu
Cynthia M. Boyd, MD, MPH;
Qilu Yu, PhD
Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology
Department of Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland
Jennifer L. Wolff, PhD
Department of Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Baltimore, Maryland
Bruce Leff, MD
Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology
Department of Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland
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