Multiple Chronic Diseases and Their Linkages with Functional Health and Subjective Well-Being among Older Adults: An Analysis of Sage Wave1 Data, 2007 to 2010

Perianayagam Arokiasamy, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Uttamacharya, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Somnath Chatterji, World Health Organization (WHO)

This paper examines the prevalence and determinants of multiple chronic diseases and their association with the self-rated health, functional health and quality of life among adults in six SAGE countries: China, India, Russia, South Africa Mexico and Ghana. We use ADL and IADL activities as measures of functional health and WHOQoL index as a measure of quality of life. Poisson regression models are estimated to understand the social determinants of multiple chronic diseases. Logit models and OLS are estimatedto examine the association between multiple chronic morbidities and self-rated health, functional health and quality of life. Russia had the highest prevalence of multi-morbidity (32.8%, 95%CI=25.5-41.1) followed by South Africa (22%, 95%CI=17.7-26.9); the other four countries had prevalence of multi-morbidity around 21%. Measures of socioeconomic status: education and wealth were found negatively associated with the number of chronic diseases. Higher number of chronic conditions was associated with the poorer self rated health, functional health and WHOQoL.