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Decrypting gender frames of MorbiNet: Evidence from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI), 2020

Parul Puri, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai
Shri Kant Singh, International Institue for Population Science (IIPS)

Indian evidence on multimorbidity for the entire country are inadequate, with only a few focusing on exploring the associations and dynamics between the diseases, i.e., disease Therefore, the present study aims to explore which diseases are associated with each other and are accountable for intersecting disease clusters segregated by gender among older adults in India. The analysis is rested on 65,562 individuals aged 45 years or older, obtained from the LASI , 2020. Multimorbidity was defined as the co-occurrence of two or more diseases in an individual using a list of 16 self-reported diseases. An edgelist was created on the basis of combination and cluster method. Further, a network analysis was employed to visualize a morbidity network (MorbiNet). Hypertension (67.85%), musculoskeletal disorder (39.38%), gastrointestinal disorder (38.74%), diabetes (35.23%), and skin disease (12.83%) were the most prevalence chronic diseases. Further, the study identifies most prominent diseases which are responsible for forming overlapping disease clusters. Hypertension had the highest number of edges (18), i.e., it was reported to be associated with 18 other chronic conditions. The findings provide empirical evidences which may assist policymakers in issuing improved guidelines to adequately manage the rising burden of multimorbidity among older adults in India.

Keywords: Health and morbidity, Older adults, Longitudinal studies, Latent class analysis

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session 140. Profiles and Patterns of Chronic Multimorbidity