Andrew Tomita1,2, Germana H Leyna3,4, Hae-Young Kim2,5,6, Yoshan Moodley2,6,7, Emmanuel Mpolya6,8, Polycarp Mogeni2,6,7, Diego F Cuadros9,10, Armstrong Dzomba11, Alain Vandormael12, Till Bärnighausen6,12, Frank Tanser6,13,7,14. 1. Centre for Rural Health, School of Nursing and Public Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. 2. KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. 3. Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 4. Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. 5. Department of Population Health, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA. 6. Africa Health Research Institute, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. 7. School of Nursing and Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. 8. Department of Global Health and Bio-Medical Sciences, School of Life Sciences and Bioengineering, Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania. 9. Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, USA. 10. Health Geography and Disease Modeling Laboratory, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, USA. 11. MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt), School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. 12. Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. 13. Lincoln International Institute for Rural Health, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK. 14. Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: while the HIV epidemic remains a considerable challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, a dramatic reduction in the associated mortality has led to a fundamental shift in the public health priorities aimed at tackling multimorbidity. Against the unprecedented level of urbanisation taking place in Tanzania, the burden of multimorbidity and its consequences among ageing adults, in the form of costly inpatient hospitalisation, remain unquantified. METHODS: we used data from one of Africa's largest urban population cohort, the Dar es Salaam Health and the Demographic Surveillance System, to quantity the extent of multimorbidity (occurrence of 2 ≥ health conditions) and discordant multimorbidity (occurrence of conditions in 2 ≥ domains in mental health, non-communicable and communicable health) among 2,299 adults aged ≥40 years in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We fitted logistic regression models to investigate the association between multimorbidity and inpatient hospitalisation. RESULTS: the prevalence of multimorbidity and discordant multimorbidity were 25.3 and 2.5%, respectively. Although the severe forms of multimorbidity (2.0% with ≥4 health conditions) and discordancy were low, hospitalisation was significantly higher based on the regression analyses. Household food insecurity was the only socio-economic variable that was significantly and consistently associated with a greater hospitalisation. CONCLUSION: we found an alarmingly high degree of multimorbidity among this ageing urban population where hospitalisation was driven by multimorbidity. As public health resources remain scarce, reducing costly inpatient hospitalisation requires multilevel interventions that address clinical- and structural-level challenges (e.g. food insecurity) to mitigate multimorbidity and promote long-term healthy independent living among older adults in Tanzania.
BACKGROUND: while the HIV epidemic remains a considerable challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, a dramatic reduction in the associated mortality has led to a fundamental shift in the public health priorities aimed at tackling multimorbidity. Against the unprecedented level of urbanisation taking place in Tanzania, the burden of multimorbidity and its consequences among ageing adults, in the form of costly inpatient hospitalisation, remain unquantified. METHODS: we used data from one of Africa's largest urban population cohort, the Dar es Salaam Health and the Demographic Surveillance System, to quantity the extent of multimorbidity (occurrence of 2 ≥ health conditions) and discordant multimorbidity (occurrence of conditions in 2 ≥ domains in mental health, non-communicable and communicable health) among 2,299 adults aged ≥40 years in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We fitted logistic regression models to investigate the association between multimorbidity and inpatient hospitalisation. RESULTS: the prevalence of multimorbidity and discordant multimorbidity were 25.3 and 2.5%, respectively. Although the severe forms of multimorbidity (2.0% with ≥4 health conditions) and discordancy were low, hospitalisation was significantly higher based on the regression analyses. Household food insecurity was the only socio-economic variable that was significantly and consistently associated with a greater hospitalisation. CONCLUSION: we found an alarmingly high degree of multimorbidity among this ageing urban population where hospitalisation was driven by multimorbidity. As public health resources remain scarce, reducing costly inpatient hospitalisation requires multilevel interventions that address clinical- and structural-level challenges (e.g. food insecurity) to mitigate multimorbidity and promote long-term healthy independent living among older adults in Tanzania.
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