Children and adolescents are not small adults: Toward a better understanding of multimorbidity in younger populations

Abstract

Multimorbidity is of an increasing importance for the health of both children and adults but research has hitherto focused on adult multimorbidity. Hence, public awareness, practice, and policy lack vital information about multimorbidity in childhood and adolescence. We convened an international and interdisciplinary group of experts from six nations to identify key priorities supported by published evidence to strengthen research for children and adolescent with multimorbidity. Future research is encouraged (1) to develop a conceptual framework to capture unique aspects of child and adolescent multimorbidity—including definitions, characteristic patterns of conditions for different age groups, its dynamic nature through childhood and adolescence, and understanding of severity and trajectories for different clusters of multiple chronic conditions, (2) to define new indices to classify the presence of multimorbidity in children and adolescents, (3) to improve the availability and linkage of data across countries, (4) to synthesize evidence on the global phenomenon of multimorbidity in childhood and adolescence and health inequalities, and (5) to involve children and adolescents in research relevant to their health.

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

9-1-2022

Volume

149

PubMed ID

35820585

Publication Title

Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

Publisher

Elsevier

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences

RAS ID

54102

Funders

National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for S.S. / School for Public Health Research (SPHR) Grant Reference Number PD-SPH-2015 / NIHR Northwest London Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) / INSIGHT Health GmbH & Co. KG. (M.v.d.A.)

Comments

van den Akker, M., Dieckelmann, M., Hussain, M. A., Bond-Smith, D., Muth, C., Pati, S., ... & Katzenellenbogen, J. M. (2022). Children and adolescents are not small adults: Toward a better understanding of multimorbidity in younger populations. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 149, 165-171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.07.003

Copyright

subscription content

First Page

165

Last Page

171

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.07.003