Prevalence of self-reported chronic diseases in individuals over the age of 40 in São Paulo, Brazil: the PLATINO study.

Few studies have been conducted to determine the prevalence of chronic diseases and its impact in individuals aged 40 years or over in Brazil. The objective of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of some common chronic diseases in the Brazilian subgroup assessed by the PLATINO study using a self-reported survey. A total of 918 individuals (55% women) with a mean age of 54.6 ± 10.9 years were evaluated. The most prevalent diseases were obesity (62.5%), hypertension (39.2%) and gastritis (30.9%). We conclude from this study that there is a high prevalence of chronic diseases in the population over 40 years of age: 88% of the population suffers from a minimum of one disease and 26% of the sample suffers from at least three diseases. We also observed that the number of comorbidities increases with age.