Global and regional prevalence of multimorbidity in the adult population in community settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Knowing the prevalence of multimorbidity among adults across continents is a crucial piece of information for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3.4, which calls for reducing premature death due to non-communicable diseases. A high prevalence of multimorbidity indicates high mortality and increased healthcare utilization. We aimed to understand the prevalence of multimorbidity across WHO geographic regions among adults.

statistics. We performed subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses based on continents, age, gender, multimorbidity definition, study periods and sample size. The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020150945).